Little Primer of Du Fu, Poems 26 - 30

[x_los]

This is week 6/7 on David Hawkes' Little Primer of Du Fu. I'll replicate the poems themselves here, but this book contains considerable exegesis, so I do advise you to grab this copy.

 

This week we're reading poems 26 through 30, 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 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 18

Comments

Ch 18, A Synthesis: Rhythm, Syntax, and Vision of Chinese Poetry

[x_los]

“Chinese is a nonin ec- tional language, and its words are not cast into a xed spatiotemporal-logical rela- tionship by tense, voice, and other in ectional tags” not really use how this co-exists with this “Since the publication of Ma Jianzhong’s (1845– 1900) Ma shi wen tong (Mr. Ma’s Grammar) in 1898, Chinese linguists have worked assiduously to construct a syntax-based Chinese grammar”

“an agent (subject) and the agent’s state or action (predicate) that may or may not involve a recipient (object). A complete subject + predicate construction en- acts or implies a temporal-causal sequence from an agent to its action and to the action’s recipient. In English and other Western languages, this construction is the primary framework for both poetic and common speech. But in Chinese, this construction is far less important or pervasive than in English” ugh, tell me about it

“It should be noted that a typical Chinese subject + predicate construction is far less restrictive than its English counterpart. Neither subject nor predicate is xed in time and space, as they are in Western languages by in ectional tags for tense, case, number, gender, and other aspects. Thus the reader has to contextualize, with or without the aid of grammatical function words.” Grim

“It was singled out by two prominent American critics, Ernest Fenollosa (1853–1908) and Ezra Pound (1885–1972), to support their assertions about the superiority of Chinese as a medium for poetry.” Again, how much to just not talk about Pound all the time?

“reduplicatives in the Book of Poetry primarily express a perceiver’s emotional response to external phenomena by translating it into alliterative and rhyming sounds untainted by conceptualization. This emotive use of reduplica- tives has had a lasting impact on Chinese poetry.” So how are they writing/reading ‘nonsense words’ in Chinese? Is that what’s up here?

“(“You, lovely” [yao miao, an assonant reduplicative])” where are they getting that from?

“however, these disyllabic segments are indispensable be- cause they help to create the quick and powerful rhythm of a shaman chant and dance and amplify emotional expression.” Interesting, it’d be good to get a better sense of this

verse eye again

“In traditional Chinese physiognomy, “sun-horn” denotes the hornlike protrusion on the forehead of someone who is or is destined to be an emperor.” Again, Emperor Horns

This chapter’s p clear and helpful honestly

“the “round toad,” a Chinese mythical metaphor for the moon,” ??

“reduplica- tives were continually reinvented over the millennia as a prized means of emo- tional expression.”

Re: Ch 18, A Synthesis: Rhythm, Syntax, and Vision of Chinese Poetry

[pengwern]

[the “round toad,” a Chinese mythical metaphor for the moon,” ??]
you know how chang e and that woodcutter wu guy and the bunny live on the moon? there’s also a (gold) toad (more elegant/archaic term 蟾蜍 rather than the hilarious 蛤蟆 which seems earthier）there, so people use it as part of the florid vocab for the moon all the time.

Re: Ch 18, A Synthesis: Rhythm, Syntax, and Vision of Chinese Poetry

[x_los]

ahh I didn't know they had a roommate

Re: Ch 18, A Synthesis: Rhythm, Syntax, and Vision of Chinese Poetry

[pengwern]

Sometimes the moon pavilion is also called 蟾宮 toad palace _@ but in context it sounds elegant! (蟾宮折桂 to pluck osmanthus at the toad palace also means succeeding when you take the metitocracy exams)

the toad is from the arrangement of craters upon the lunar surface, similar to the rabbit in many other mythologies.
...also a three footed crow 三足乌 lives on the sun, because sometimes they saw sunspots, those darker patches with golden tongues of flame flickering out.