poetic chinese
TRANSCRIPT
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New Space and New Writing
The opening up of new space anticipated a
new kind of writing that encompassed
phenomena of larger world
Writing no longer focused on classics,
philosophy, and historiography
Literati created a more autonomous aesthetic
realm paralleling the emergence of new spaces:
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These new spaces
were:
Taverns and pavilions
for pure conversation
and poetry gathering
Buddhist and Daoisttemples
Large gardens and
villas in new cities and
in the hills and
mountains
Hermits dwellings in
wilderness and caves
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New writing went beyond classics,
philosophy, and historiography
It now expanded to encompass mysteries,
legends, life and death, natural and
supernatural worlds
Impacts of Buddhism and Daoism were clear
in both intellectual discourse and fictional
writing: Intellectual discourse: Dark Studies
Fictional writing: Anomaly account or
Account of Anomalies
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Influence of Early Daoism
Dark Studies (or Mysterious Studies) featured ideasand themes found in early Confucian and Daoist texts:
The Canon of Change(Yi jing)
The Canon of Way and Power (Daode jing)
The Master Zhuang (Zhuang zi)
Debates overTeaching of names (mingjiao) vs.
Nature (ziran) figured most prominently
Participants: He Yan, Wang Bi, Guo Xiang, Zhong Hui,Ruan Ji, and Xi (Ji) Kang
Contributed to the pure conversation movement
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Intellectual discourse focused on the relations
between names and forms, nothingness
(nonentities) and entities, character and talent.It reflected conflict between Confucian view that
stresses the existence of a moral heaven and the
early Daoist (Zhuangzis) view of an amoral heaven Zhuangzis views on inaction (no purposive action,
wu wei), nature and spontaneity, and inadequacy
of language gained currency
Intellectuals used Lao-Zhuang to interpret
Confucianism, e.g., Confucius embodied
nothingness and stressed the importance of nature,
naturalness, and spontaneity.
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Terminology used in the Dark Studies
Wunothingness, nonbeing, or
negativity
Wang Bi: Wu is the ultimate basis of reality,
prior to and above Confucian moral heaven. Wu lies beyond the reach of images or
language in the realm of the mysterious or
dark
Wu weiaction based on the principle of
non-action, i.e., nonpurposive action,
particularly when a ruler rules a state
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Perfected Man, Great Man---people who
refused public, political service and work towardself-perfection by living a life that
appreciates the beauties of nature and of simplicity
and spontaneity, enjoys wine and music when going on excursion to
the hills and streams
Ziran(self-so)nature means the union or
integration of natural world and humankind into
a purposeless and amoral state
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Anomaly account
Referred to as zhiguai, with the followingcharacteristics:
Biographical,
Strange/unusual objects,
bizarre and fantastic events:
Daoist fights Demon
Buddhist wonder-working
return-to-life storiesBuddhist magic
portents and auguries
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ghosts, spiritsSex and marriage with ghost spirit:
Lu Chong weds a deceased woman who gives birth to his son Necromantic practices:
Communications and interactions with immortals, sprits ofdead including female spirits, animal spirits, etc.
Types of Stories
Two most common types
Ghost stories: dead persons manage to cross the boundary
between the human world (yang) and the nether (yin)
worldReturn-from-death: living persons at the near death stage
manage to negotiate the difficult crossing and return alive
from the world of the dead.
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The Emergence of New
Poetic Writing: NewForm and New Content
[]
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Chinese Poetic Tradition
Pre-Qin: two traditions The northern tradition: The Book of Poetry(Odes)
The southern tradition: The Chuci(or Chu-tzu)
Han: Fuand Yuefu Fu(epideictic rhapsody or rhymed-prose)
Zuo Si, Three Capitals Rhapsody
Lu Ji Rhapsody on Literature
Yuefu(Music Bureau) ballads
Southeast the Peacock Flies
The Columbia Book of Chinese Poetry
http://www.virginia.edu/ealc/chinese_literature/watson/CBtoc.htmhttp://www.virginia.edu/ealc/chinese_literature/watson/CBtoc.htm -
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Yuefu Ballads
Han and Wei Five-character shi(shih) poetry became the favorite
vehicle for lyric expression
Nineteen Old Poems of the Han poets: Cao Cao, Cao Zhi, Seven Masters of Jianan
Jin
Ziye songs,
wanderingwith immortals
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Selections from the Book of Songs
Jiang Zhongzi
Please ZhongziDo not climb into our hamlet
Do not break our willow tree
Its not that I begrudge the willows
But I fear my father and mother
You, I would embrace
But my parents words
Those I dread
Please Zhongzi
Do not leap over our wallDo not break our mulberry trees
Its not that I begrudge themulberries
But I fear my brothers
You, I would embrace
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Song of the Great Wind
--Liu Bang (256-195 BC)
A great wind arose,
the clouds flew up and
away;
My majesty now grown tothe seas edges
I return to my old home.
Yet where shall I findbrave men to guard
the four quarters?
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Song of Gaixia (202BC):
Farewell, Lady Yu!
My strength plucked up the
hills
My might shadowed the world
But the times were against me
And Dapple runs no more
When Dapple runs no more,
What then can I do?
Ah! Yu, my Yu!
What will your fate be?
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Northern Ballad: PrinceLangye Song
I just bought a five-foot sword,
From the central pillar I hang it.
I stroke it three times a day
Better by far than a maid of fifteen.
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Southern Ballad: Ziyesong
.
I held my dress, not tying the sash;
I painted my brows and went to the
windows.
My gauze skirt is easily whirled by
the breeze
If it opens a bit, just blame thespring wind.
.
.
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Ancient Poems
Seven Worthies of Bamboo Grove Ruan Ji
Xi (Ji) Kang
Tao Qian (Yuanming) The most widely admired of the early Chinese poet
Creator of the Chinese Shangri-lathe Peach BlossomSpring
Characteristics of poems during this time Sang personal feelings in response to events of ones
own life
Conveyed personal thoughts about human condition
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Reflected on a variety of human sorrow or
frailty
Frailty of human body
Fleeting life and ineluctable death
Appreciated the beauties of nature and
lamented the fading of things and the
transience of life
Paid attention to the signs of human mortality
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Ruan JisPoem
Hibiscus overgrows the grave
mounds,
Sparkling in lustrous shades.
But when the bright sun
sinks in the forest,
Its petals fall to the roadside.
Crickets chirp by doors andwindows,
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Cicadas hum amidst the brambles.
Mayflies play for only three
mornings,
Yet they preen themselves,
working their wings.
For whom do they display theirfinery,
Flying up and down, sprucing
themselves up?
How short life is,
But everything, full or ardor,
labors on.
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Tao Yuanming
Tao Yuanming (365-427) A Confucian scholar and poet who was well-versed in
Daoist philosophy
Served as a local officials but never held any post verylong
Quit his post because he couldn't for five pecks of rice
bow before a village buffoon. Buffoon was used to
ridicule a local inspector, his superior.
Regarded as the patriarch of the poets of reclusion
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Poems are plain,unadorned but deep
and often philosophical;
representative of
pastoral poetry Many of his poems are
tinged with Daoist
sentiment
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Recurrent Themes
of Taos Poetry
Life is fleeting, death isineluctable The Three Sovereigns, the great sages
of old
Where are they today? Pengzu loved longevity,
Wanted to stay longer but it couldnt
be.
Old ad young alike die a single death
Wise and foolish are not allotted
different fates.
(Substance, Shadow, and spirit:
spirit expounds)
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Fleeting life, ineluctable death--- Theyre dead and gone, none of them left!
In one generation both court and city change.
Mans life is a phantom affair
And he returns at last to the empty void. (Return to My Home, no.4)
As a boy in braids, I held to my own odd ways,
Then before I knew it I was over forty.
My body must go where the course of change takes it, But the spirit within me will always be at peace.
(we had a fire)
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Fleeting life.
why do we value this body of ours?
Isnt it because we have just one life?And this one lifetimehow long will it last?
It shoots by like a bolt of lightning! (Drinking Wine, no.3)
Or should I be like gentlemen of our time,
hearts filled with hopes that clash like ice and fire,
who, their hundred years ended, gone to tall graves,
find they have won themselves only empty names? (poems without category, no.4)
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Fleeting life .
Long ago, men in search of fame and honor fought valiantly with each other over this ground
but then their hundred years one morning ended,
And together they went home to the northern hills.
Now people have cut the pine and cypress on their graves; only the tall mounds remain, dipping and rising side by
side.
The graves wash away, no heirs to tend them;
And their wondering ghosts---where have they gone?
Wealth and glory---no doubt, worth prizing;
At the same time, a cause for sorrow and pain.
(imitating the Old Poems, no. 4)
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Tao Yuanming
by Ming Painter Wang Zhongyu
Returning to My Home in the Country,no. 1 by Tao Qian (365-427)
In youth I couldnt sing to the common
tuneIt was my nature to love the mountains
and hills.
By mistake I got caught in the dusty snare
Went away once and stayed thirteen
years.The winging bird longs for its old woods;
The fish in the pond thinks of the deeps it
once knew.
I have opened up some waste land by the
southern fields
Stupid as ever, Ive come home to the
country
My house and land on a two-acre lot,
My house plot measures ten muor more
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A grass roof covering eight or nine spans
Elm and willow shade the back eaves,
Peach and damson ranged in front of the hall.
Dim dim, a village of distant neighbors;
drifting drifting, the smoke from settlements
A dog barks in deep lanes,Chickens call from tops of mulberry trees.
Around my door and courtyard, no dust andclutter,
In my empty rooms, leisure enough to spare.
After so long in that cage of mine,
Ive come back to things as they are.
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Poetry and Language
New generation of poets introduced thenew system of tonal prosody
Poetic (prosodic) rules began to include four
tones: level (png), rising (shng), parting(q), entering(r) and eightprohibitions
/faults
Four tones were classified into two categories
later: level (png), oblique (z)
Interest in tonal patterns reflected the
influences of Indian literature and Buddhism
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Calligraphy
Calligraphy rose to become the leadingvisual art.
Literati with great calligraphic skill could
command respect. The development of calligraphic art resulted
in the emergence of new scripts: running-
hand and cursive scripts, which simplifiedmany Chinese characters.
Calligraphic theory tied the beauty/ugliness
to human characters.
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Calligraphic art became an importantsubject in literatisdiscourse and
calligraphic theory.Questions regarding copies and forgeries were
raised.
Fraud (wi ) and Genuineness (zhn)becamecriteria for evaluating calligraphic works.
Wang Xizhi (303-361) Canonized as the sageof Chinese calligraphy
Calligraphic works were characterized in amodel of the running modescript.
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Wang Xizhis calligraphy
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Prose Narrative
Historya boom in historical writingappeared: dynastic histories and localhistories
Dynastic histories: Chen Shou, Records of the Three Kingdoms Shen Yue, Book of the Song Dynasty
Xiao Zixian, Book of the Southern Qi
Local histories: Record of the States South of Mt. Hua
Hagiographies: Biographies of Eminent Monks
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Temple records
Record of the Buddhist Temples of Luoyang Collections of Anecdotes
Forest of Conversations
New Account of Tales of the World Anomaly account/ Account of Anomalies.
Referred to as zhiguai, with the followingcharacteristics: Biographical
Strange/unusual objects
Bizarre and fantastic events: Daoist fights Demon
Buddhist wonder-workingreturn-to-life stories
Buddhist magic
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Writers fascinated with the anomalous created
stories to teach moral lessons, despite theiracknowledgement of Confuciusadvice: The master never talked of prodigies, feats of
abnormal strength, natural disorders, or spirits
Most writers were southerners who used thebenefits of space expansion in the south to givefree rein to their imagination about a fantastic,
boundless nature, cosmos, and myriad creatures
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Paintings
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Paintings
Painting: Gu Kaizhi (or Ku Kai-chih, ca.344-406) The only work extant, Admonitions of the
Instructress to the Court Ladies,reflects theConfucian content of the painting.
Known as specialized in figure painting.
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Gu Kaizhis Painting
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Goddess of the River Luo
http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-tw/File:Goddess_of_luo_shui_(part)1.jpg