Shi Jing, The Book of Odes: Lessons from the States, Odes Of Gui and Odes of Cao

[x_los]

* I found the best option for the weekly reminder emails, via Gmail. The external service options are more involved than our purposes require. Does anyone know anything about how to arrange an Apps Script? Basically all it has to do is tell ten people, on Saturdays, to come and get their juice/poems.

Until someone knows what to do there, I'll send out manual messages weekly. If you'd like to receive these and are not getting them, please let me know.

* If you haven't read it yet, chapter one, on tetrasyllabic shi poetry, in How to Read Chinese Poetry is hugely useful for the Book of Odes, imo.

* IF YOU HAVE FRIENDS WHO MIGHT LIKE TO JOIN or have other ideas, please let me know on this post.

* Every week I search the poems' English results to see if I can find any scholarship or neat bits and pop the results in Resources. Here is this week's collection.

* In case you missed it and are interested, some people on the com are doing a Nirvana in Fire read-along here. Anyone with thoughts is welcome to chime in. 

**NEXT BATCH MARCH 15.**

Comments

Re: 曹風 - Odes Of Cao; 151. 候人 - Hou Ren

[superborb]

Baike: Most think this is ridiculing how mediocre people get high positions, criticizing unequal social reality. The poem uses a lot of poetic techniques.

The 'fu' technique is used in the first stanza, comparing two different people. (The first two lines of the first stanza and the last two lines refer to different people.) The people it complains about (those people with the red covers) are high-ranking and pompous.

The second and third stanzas use the 'bi' (comparison) technique. Here the pelican is standing on the dam and only needs to stretch its neck to get fish (not enter the water), as the fish will jump into its mouth.

The last stanza uses the 'qixing' technique, describing the gray and overcast atmosphere and the abandoned and starved young lady.

'red covers': ceremonial clothing(?) made of leather, the upper part is narrow and the lower part is wide, and the upper part is fixed to the waist. The colors indicate rank; red is for senior officials and above.
'dam': a dike that extends into the water for fishing
'hunger': one source says it's the hunger of a woman for marriage

Re: 曹風 - Odes Of Cao; 151. 候人 - Hou Ren

[x_los]

Thanks for all the info on techniques here, this was really helpful.