Form and Transformation in Modern Chinese Poetry and Poetics

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Citation Skerratt, Brian Phillips. 2013. Form and Transformation in Modern Chinese Poetry and Poetics. Doctoral dissertation, Harvard University.

Citable link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:11181112

Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#LAA ©2013 Brian Skerratt All rights reserved. Dissertation Advisor: David Wang Brian Skerratt

Form and Transform ation in M odern Chinese Poetry and Poetics

Abstract

Hu Shi began the modern Chinese New Poetry movement by calling for the liberation of poetic form s, but w hat constitutes “form ” and how best to approach its liberation have rem ained di6cu lt issu es, as th e apparen t m aterial, objective reality of literary form is show n to be deeply em bedded both culturally and historically. ⌧is d issertation presents $ve movem ents of the dialectic between form and history, each illustrated by case stu d ies d raw n fro m th e th eo ry an d p ractice o f m o d ern C h in ese p o etry: $rst, th e h igh ly political and self-contradictory dem and for linguistic transparency; second, the discourse su rro u n d in g p o etic o b scu rity an d altern ative ap p ro ach es to th e q u estio n o f “m ean in g”; th ird , a theory of poetry based on its m usicality and a reading practice that em phasizes sam eness over di9erence; four, poetry’s status as “untranslatable” as against Chinese poetry’s reputation as “already translated”; and $fth, the im plications of an “iconic” view of poetic language. By read in g a selectio n o f p o ets an d sch o o ls th ro u gh th e len s o f th eir ap p ro ach es to fo rm , I allo w th e rad ical d i9eren ce w ith in th e trad itio n to eclip se th e m o re fam iliar co n trast o f m o d ern

Chinese poetry with its foreign and pre-modern others. My dissertation represents a preliminary step tow ards a historically-inform ed form alism in the study of modern Chinese lite ra tu re .

iii Table of Contents

Acknowledgements v

Chapter 1: Transparency An Introduction 1

Chapter 2: Obscurity Menglong: A M o d e rn H isto ry 46

Chapter 3: Musicality Zhu Guangqian and the Rhythm of New Poetry 99

Chapter 4: Translatability “Poetry is Poetry”: ⌧e U ntranslatable and the A lready-Translated 142

Chapter 5: Iconicity ⌧e Analog Poet: Hsia Yü E n te rs th e D ig ita l A g e 188

Conclusion: Poetry and Praxis 243

Bibliography 249

iv Acknowledgements

It says so m eth in g ab o u t m y p erso n ality th at an ack n o w led g em en ts sectio n , to m e, can be nothing other than a list of the people I am most terri$ed of disappointing–people whose generosity and kindness I feel so unworthy of having received that no work of sch o larsh ip , least o f all an y th at I am cap ab le o f w ritin g, co u ld b egin to erase th at d eb t. S o it is w ith sin c e re h u m ility th a t I $rst acknow ledge the perpetual support of m y advisor, D avid Wang. Somehow it was always at the darkest moments of the process that I would crawl out from under m y rock and into W ang laoshi’s o6ce, o n ly to $n d th at h e w as n o t o n ly still invested in m e and m y project, but that he w as even brim m ing w ith ideas and suggestions for im provem ents and extensions to the w ork I had been ready to discard just m om ents before. To have him put his faith in me when I did not always share that faith was and is a suprem ely hum bling experience, and so it is to him that I dedicate this dissertation. I also w ish to th an k th o se oth er teach ers w h o su p p o rted , en co u raged , an d in Iu en ced me during my years working on this Ph.D. In terms of unIagging faith, the only one to rival Professor W ang would be his primary school classm ate, M ichelle Yeh, without whom this project would never have begun, let alone $nished. No one has challenged me intellectually more than Stephen Owen, whom I would also like to thank for helping to advise this dissertation. I pro$ted greatly from my interactions, in and out of the classroom , with Eileen Chow, Wilt Idema, Wai-Yee Li, Xiaofei Tian, Sarah Allen, Zeb Raft, Matthew Fraleigh, Daniel Albright, Despina Kakoudaki, Christopher Johnson, Michel Hockx, Lucas Klein, Hu Siao-chen, M ei Chia-ling, and Ann H uss. Before I cam e to H arvard, I was inspired by the teach in g o f C raig D w o rk in , M ich ael G o lsto n , S h an g W ei, B ru ce R o b b in s, an d S eiich i Makino. I want to thank the entire sta9 of EALC, especially Jim Zigo, Susan Kashiwa, Denise Oberdan, and Gus Espada; the sta9 of the Harvard-Yenching Library; and the sta9 of the B ok C enter for T eaching and L earning, especially E llen Sarkisian and V irginia M aurer. It is fair to say th at I h ave learn ed even m o re, acad em ically an d p erso n ally, fro m m y classm ates and friends at H arvard and elsew here than I have from m y illustrious professors and advisors. Above all, I w ish to thank tw o dear friends and brilliant hum ans, W ill H edberg and A riel Fox, w ho truly understand m e best. I am also grateful for the help and support of my dissertation group-mates, who read my work when it was least well-formed: Jie Li, Ying Qian, Angie Lai, Andrew Rodekohr, Erin Schlumpf, John Kim, Satoru Hashimoto, Tarryn Chun, and Casey Lee. Special thanks are due to May-yi Shaw and Nic Testerman, who were th ere fo r m e in th e $n al stretch , w h en I m o st n eed ed su p p o rt. For their love and friendship, I want to thank Rob and M olly M orris, Ana Olenina, Alexis Schulman, Barbara Geoghegan, Andrea and Cat Pien, Katie Carmody, Tracy Hwang, Laura Bohn, Erin Kappeler, Zack Stinson, Dan Iglesia, Lulu Hansen, Ren-Yuan Li, Jon Schlesinger, Rob W ard, Heidi Steinberg, and M ay Yang. Last, I want to thank my dear mother and father, Andrea and William; my grandmother Rose-Marie; my aunt Kathy; my sister L au ra an d b ro th er-in -law S h ah eed ; an d m y b eau tifu l n iece Z o ey.

v ⌧e landlord says: “⌧e hardest thing is starting.” ⌧e landlord also says: “Even harder is $nishing.”

房東說：‘最難的是開始’ 房東又說：‘更難的是結束’

Hsia Yü ⇥, “✏e M usic and the Steps” ⇤⌅⇧⌃

vi Chapter 1 Transparency

An Introduction

Form and Chinese Modernity

In D ecem b er o f 1 9 5 3 , B ian Z h ilin 卞之琳 (1 9 1 0 -2 0 0 0 ) p resen ted a talk en titled

“⌧e R hythm of C hanting (Song) and the R hythm of Speech (R ecitation)” 哼唱型節奏

（吟調）和說話型節奏（誦調）at a panel on the problem of poetic form . In his talk,

Bian discusses two lines of poetry he had noticed in a recent issue of Popular Poetry 大眾詩

歌 celebrating the 1949 R evolution:

革命大成功，百姓坐朝廷 Geming | da chenggong,/ baixing | zuo chaoting.

⌧e revolution has greatly succeeded, ⌧e people sit in the court.1

Bian points out the irony that this ode to the revolutionary founding of new China unw ittingly and out of habit reproduces the metrical structure of classical pentasyllabic verse

(wuyan ju 五言句), w h ere each lin e co n sists o f a g ro u p o f tw o syllab les fo llo w ed b y a g ro u p of three. H ow could som eone celebrate the $nal liberation of the Chinese people in a verse form handed dow n by generations of aristocratic, C onfucian literati? B ian suggests revising

1 Bian Zhilin 卞之琳, “ H e n g c h a n g x in g jie zo u (y in d ia o ) h e sh u o h u a x in g jie zo u (so n g d ia o )” 哼唱型節奏 （吟調）和說話型節奏（誦調）, Zhongguo xiandai shilun 中國現代詩論, e d . Y a n g K u a n g h a n 楊匡漢 and Liu Fuchun 劉富春 (G u an gzh o u : H u ach en g ch u b an sh e, 1 9 8 6 )): 2 .9 .

1 th e co u p let fro m th e trad itio n al 2 + 3 sy llab le m eter to 3 + 2 , a m eter w h ich w o u ld h ave b een highly unusual in classical poetry:

大革命成功，老百姓當朝 Da geming | chenggong,/ Laobaixing | dangchao.

⌧e great revolution has succeeded, ⌧e people occupy the throne.2

⌧e revised version is a craftsman’s solution: the seasoned poet has no trouble thinking of a three-syllable synonym for “com m on people” (la o b a ix in g fo r baixing) an d a p ith ier, tw o - syllab le w o rd (dangchao, “ h o ld a u th o rity ” ) fo r a lo n g e r v e rb p h ra se (zuo ch aotin g, “sit in th e court”). ⌧e meaning and its implications–even the lines’ tonal pattern–are basically unaltered; only the metrical structure has changed, but that simple alteration represents, for

Bian, a critical shift. Put a group of three syllables before a group of two and you are progressive, modern, revolutionary; put two syllables before three and you are conservative, reactio n ary, a slave to trad itio n .

In critiq u in g th is verse fo r its m eter, B ian reIects a n u m b er o f ch erish ed b eliefs h eld by Chinese intellectuals in the $rst half of the twentieth century. First, for the “great revo lu tio n ” to “su cceed ,” o n e m u st clearly d i9eren tiate p ast an d p resen t, o ld an d n ew , an d ren o vate w h erever p o ssib le. A m o d e rn e ra n e e d s a m o d e rn lite ra tu re ; to w rite in a m a n n e r proper to the historical past during the modern present is at best anachronistic, or at worst reactio n ary. S eco n d , an d m o re su b tly, B ian reIects th e b elief th at th e fo rm o f a p o em m u st reIect its co n ten t, an d th at a d isso n an ce b etw een fo rm an d co n ten t is en o u gh to u n d erm in e

2 Ib id .

2 th e co h eren ce o f a w o rk o f literatu re. ⌧e su b o rd in atio n o f fo rm to co n ten t w as a clich é dating from the early days of the New Culture movem ent. In general, though vernacular poets of the Republican period di9ered widely in their views on poetic form , M ay Fourth intellectuals’ antagonistic attitude tow ards the cultural products that had com e before im plied a profound distrust of form al constraint and a strong em phasis on the content of a work, on its message. Even for Bian, whose interest in metrical form will be discussed more below, the form cannot contradict the meaning.

At the same time, there is an ambivalence in this position: form is treated as a seco n d ary, in cid en tal o r d eco rative elem en t o f p o etry, su b o rd in ate to th e m ean in g o f th e words, while at the same time, it is signi$cant enough to demand renovation for a modern context. ⌧e fact that Bian can alter the form of a poem w ithout changing its literal m eaning su ggests th at fo rm an d co n ten t are relatively in d ep en d en t an d sep arab le; yet th e fact th at

Bian detects a tension between the two and wishes to resolve it suggests that form itself means something, and that the meaning of form is not something that can be dismissed. Hu

Shi 胡適 (1 8 9 1 -1 9 6 2 ) in au g u rated th e N ew P o etry (Xinshi 新詩) m ovem ent by declaring that “any revolutionary m ovem ent in literature, w hether old or new , C hinese or foreign, probably has to start with respect to literary form ; it probably has $rst to dem and the liberation of language, w ords, genres, and form al conventions” 文學革命的運動，不論古

今中外，大概都是從文的形式一方面下手，大概都是先要求語言文字文體等方面的

3 大解放.3 H u ’s g o a ls o f “re v o lu tio n ” a n d “ lib e ra tio n ” a re $g u re d n e g a tiv e ly, so th a t o n e c a n only identify the sources of oppression and elim inate them . Freedom is proven by the absence of those oppressive forces, w hich explains Bian’s reaction to the couplet discussed above. A ny m eter w ould do, as long as it is not one of the old ones. By proposing to take the fam iliar m etrical rh y th m an d sim p ly in v ert it, B ian is d elib erately an d self-co n scio u sly su b vertin g a certain exp ectatio n o f th e read er, b u t th e tech n iq u e w o u ld d ep en d o n th e persistence of that expectation, on the continued hegem ony of classical meters, for its full e9ect. ⌧is is a liberation through negation w hich alw ays preserves the specter of oppression.

Hu Shi memorably compared this kind of liberation to unbinding a woman’s feet; in th e p reface to th e fo u rth ed itio n o f h is $rst co llectio n o f vern acu lar p o etry, Experiments 嘗試

集, H u w ro te , “ W h e n n o w I lo o k b a c k a t m y p o e try o f th e se $v e y e a rs, I a m m u c h lik e a woman whose feet were once bound, looking at her sh o e s fro m o v e r th e y e a rs. A lth o u g h e a c h year’s shoes are bigger than the last, they all still have a bit of the stench of the footbinding era in them ” 我現在回頭看我這五年來的詩，很像一個纏過腳後來放大了的婦人回

頭看他一年一年的放腳鞋樣，雖然一年放大一年，年年的鞋樣上總還帶著纏腳時代

的血腥氣.4 To the m odern poet of vernacular N ew Poetry, classical verse form s w ere so m eth in g th at lay in th e su b co n scio u s, im p o ssib le to erad icate; th ey w ere id eo lo gical

3 Hu Shi, “Tan xinshi” 談新詩, Hu Shi quanji 胡適全集 (H efei: A n h u i jiao yu ch u b an sh e, 2 0 0 3 ): 1 .1 5 9 .

4 Hu Shi, “Changshi ji sib a n x u ” 嘗試集四版序, Hu Shi quan ji 胡適全集 (H efei: A n h u i jiao yu ch u b an sh e, 2003) 2.813.

4 “can gu es an d fetters” 枷鎖鐐銬5 th at k ep t o n e ch ain ed to th e p ast.

Bian Zhilin’s view was more com plex, however. Bian was not just opposed to the unw itting replication of classical form s; he was hoping to advocate for a more mindful, stu d ied ap p ro ach to p o etic fo rm s b o th o ld an d n ew .

No one has any idea why more and more poets are writing vernacular poems with four lines to th e stan za, an d n o o n e cares w h at k in d o f atten tio n th at fo rm req u ires, u n less it’s to scrap e together som e end-rhym es. I guess they’re just concerned about freedom .

大家都不知道為甚麼越來越多的傾向於寫四行一節的白話詩，也不在乎其中有甚麼 需要講究，除非想到要湊幾個腳韻。大概是只要求自由吧.6

Bian was a careful student of prosody; he wrote extensively on the nature of metrical units in vernacular C hinese (organized, according to the system he favored, into units called dun 頓, sim ilar to m etrical feet in E u ro p ean lan gu ages b u t d ivid ed acco rd in g to w o rd an d p h rase boundaries) and considered what metrical arrangem ents were best suited to everyday speech, to recitatio n , to ch an tin g , an d so o n .

[W e stu d y p ro so d y] so th at w h en w e u se a sp o k en style to “read ” or “recite” vern acu lar n ew - style p o em s, rath er th an “ch an tin g” at w ill o r “sin gin g” fro m a sco re, w e d o n’t fail to evin ce th e in trin sic p ro p e rtie s a n d objective ru le s o f p o e try itself, a s a te m p o ra l a n d a u d ito ry a rtfo rm , so w e d o n’t leave th e reciter w ith n o [rh yth m ] to rely o n , as in sp o k en d ram atic d ialo g o r oration. Let us freely create according to each [poet’s] talent, to express the pulse, rhythm , and even the m elody of m usic.

這都是為了在我們既不是隨意來“吟”或“哼”，也不是按曲譜來“唱”，而是按 說話方式來“念”或“朗誦”白話新體詩的時候，不致顯不出像詩本身作為時間藝 術、聽覺藝術所含有的內在因素、客觀規律，而只像話劇台詞或鼓動演說，使朗誦者 無所依據，就憑各自的才能，自由創造，以表達音樂一樣的節拍、節奏以至於旋律.

5 Hu Shi quanji 1 .1 6 0 .

6 Bian Zhilin, “W ancheng yu kaiduan: jinian Wen Yiduo bashi shengchen” 完成與開端：紀念詩人聞一多 八十生辰, Ren yu shi: yijiu shuoxin 人與詩:憶舊說新 (B eijin g: S h en gh u o , d u sh u , xin zh i san lian sh u d ian , 1984): 1 5 .

5 7

On the one hand, Bian insists on attention to the “intrinsic properties and objective rules” of poetic language, especially insofar as it is special and unlike other form s of literary or non- literary language, w hile on the other hand, he em phasizes “free creation” 自由創造. B ia n , who says that he often likes to repeat the aphorism that “freedom is the recognition of necessity” 自由是對於必然的認識,8 su g g e sts th a t tru e fre e d o m is n o t to b e fo u n d in a n absence of constraints, but rather in the full recognition of those constraints w hich cannot be changed. H ere he sounds very m uch like W en, w ho fam ously com pared w riting poetry in set metrical forms to dancing in shackles, claiming that “only someone who can’t dance would feel hindered by the shackles” 只有不會跳舞的才怪腳鐐礙事.9 ⌧is a rtic u la tio n o f freedom , attained by the negotiation of necessity and scienti$c fact, d i9ers dram atically from the prom ise of freedom o9ered by H u Shi’s origin ary w ritin gs on literary revolution , achieved th ro u g h th e d estru ctio n o f trad itio n al b o n d s.

7 Bian Zhilin, “Zixu” 自序, Diaochong jili: 1930-1958 雕蟲紀曆（1930－1958）(B eijing: R enm in w enxue chubanshe, 1979): 14. Em phasis in original.

8 “W ancheng yu kaiduan” 15.

9 Wen Yiduo 聞 一多, “ S h i d e g e lü ” 詩的格律, Wen Yiduo quan ji 聞一多全集 (W uhan: H ubei renm in chubanshe, 1994) 2.139.

6 Hu Shi’s comparison of traditional poetic meters to footbinding was more than just a metaphor; he considered both to be constraints handed down from oppressive Chinese tradition. In a 1933 speech at the U niversity of C hicago, H u describes the goals of the M ay

Fourth movem ent as follow s:

it w a s a m o v e m e n t o f c o n sc io u s p ro te st a g a in st m a n y o f th e id e a s a n d in stitu tio n s in th e traditional culture, and of conscious em ancipation of the individual m an and w om an from the bondage forces of tradition. It w as a m ovem ent of reason versus tradition, freedom versus authority, and glori$cation of life and hum an values versus their suppression.10

⌧e narratives of individual and national liberation that accompany much of the cultural production of twentieth-century China must be viewed with as much skepticism as those th at acco m p an ied th e E u ro p ean E n lig h ten m en t. T rad itio n al cu ltu ral p ractices m ay h ave b een constrictive and oppressive, but institutionally-enforced m odernity has been, and is today, no less coercive. In one critique of the “liberated” m odern youth and his literary tastes, W en

Yiduo skewers the obsession with “self-expression” en vogue in the 1920s:

⌧ey use words as their tools of expression, but this is incidental; their main concern is to expose their ‘inner selves’, to let the w orld know that they are suprem ely talented, sorrow ful, and aXicted youth. A t the sam e tim e, they gaze at their ow n dashing $gures in literature’s mirror, with a sentimental tear in their eye, ah! ah! How fascinating! How romantic! Yes, what they call “romanticism” is romantic in this sense and has nothing to do with literary

10 Quoted in Ying-shih Yü, “Neither Renaissance nor Enlightenment,” ✏e Appropriation of Cultural Capital: China’s May Fourth Project, e d . Milena DoleZelová-V elingerová and O ld\ich K rál (C a m b rid g e , M A : H a rv a rd University Asia Center, 2001): 300.

7 Romanticism.

他們用了文字作表現的工具，不過是偶然的事，他們最稱心的工作是把所謂“自我 ”披露出來，是讓世界知道“我”也是一個多才多藝，善病工愁的少年；並且在文 藝的鏡子裡照見自己那倜儻的風姿，還帶着幾滴多情的眼淚，啊！啊！那是多麼有 趣的事！多麼浪漫！不錯，他們所謂浪漫主義，正浪漫在這點上，和文藝的派别絕 不發生關係.11

In A lth u sser’s u n d erstan d in g o f id eo lo gy, “⌧o se w h o are in id eo lo gy b elieve th em selves b y de$nition outside ideology; one of the e9ects of ideology is the practical denigration o f th e id e o lo g ic a l c h a ra c te r o f id e o lo g y b y id e o lo g y ” 12; th e su b je c t o f M a y F o u rth e n lig h te n m e n t believes himself to be liberated while those who follow alternative cultural practices are not.

In th is case, d eclarin g o n eself free fro m co n strain t is a k in d o f p erfo rm an ce, a ro le-p lay, whose costume and mannerisms are $rmly pre-determined. If o ld -fash io n ed p o ets slavish ly adhering to com plicated traditional verse form s are nothing m ore than autom ata, plugging words into set forms, then neither are the young iconoclasts sighing about “freedom” actually free.

An aversion to arti$ce is the necessary obverse to an obsession with authenticity, what

I w ill call a “regim e of tran sp aren cy,” th e d em an d th at literatu re an d lan gu age reIect th e tru th “h o n estly” o r “tran sp aren tly.” W h eth er th at su p p o sed tru th is su b jective an d in tern al

(as in lyric p o etry) o r o b jective an d extern al (as in ep ic p o etry o r R ealist $ctio n ), th ere is little ro o m fo r th e w riter’s o w n u n d isgu ised arti$ce. M arjo rie P erlo 9, w ritin g ab o u t an o p p o sitio n

11 Wen Yiduo, “Shi de gelü” 詩的格律, Wen Yiduo quanji 聞一多全集 (W uhan: H ubei renm in chubanshe, 1994): 2.139.

12 Louis Althusser, Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays, tra n s. B e n B re w ste r (N e w Y o rk : M o n th ly R e v ie w Press, 1972): 175.

8 between mainstream and marginal poetic discourses in Am erican poetry, argues that under su ch a regim e,

Subject m atter ... is all. At the sam e tim e, poets ... who believe that oppositionality has to do, not only with what a poem says, but with the form al, modal, and generic choices it makes– its use, say, of a non-traditional rhythm ic base, a particular vernacular, or an incorporation of cited nonpoetic material–these poets continue to be relegated to the margins.13

If th e d en igratio n o f p o etic fo rm s w as, in itially at least, ab o u t “lib eratio n ,” th e d em an d to b e already liberated becom es a new kind of im prisonm ent. By yoking poetic versi$cation to a discourse of revolution and liberation, what kinds of poetries have been discouraged or ig n o re d ? W h a t so rt o f a lte rn a tiv e p o e tic m o d e rn itie s c a n w e im a g in e b e y o n d th e d o m in a n t

May Fourth enlightenment paradigm?

The Linguistic Turn

In a 2 0 1 0 article, p o et an d sch o lar H en ry Z h ao (a.k .a. Z h ao Y ih en g 趙毅衡, b .

1943) points out that China has mostly missed out on the form alist methodologies that have been so inIuential in the W estern academ y through much of the twentieth century.

“L ooking back on the changes in C hinese literary thought over the past sixty years, it looks as th o u g h th e ‘lin g u istic tu rn ’ n ever o ccu rred in C h in a, an d o n e can ’t really say th at fo rm alist criticism ever had solid footing” 回顧六十年中國文藝思想的變遷，看起來語言轉折在

13 Marjorie Perlo9, Radical Arti=ce: Writing Poetry in the Age of Media (C h ic a g o : C h ic a g o U n iv e rsity P re ss, 1991 ): 11.

9 中國幾乎沒有發生過，形式文論很難說站住過腳.14 B o rro w in g th e p h ra se fro m R ic h a rd

Rorty’s 1967 anthology of philosophical essays, Zhao suggests that we might be able to “$ll in ” (bu 補) this gap in modern Chinese intellectual history. Zhao–who himself studied with

Bian Zhilin and wrote about New Criticism in the early 1980s under Bian’s supervision15– lays out a detailed history of N ew C riticism , structuralism , narratology, and sem iology in

China and Taiwan: from the long-term stays in China of I.A. Richards and William Empson, to th e literary criticism o f L i C h an g zh i 李長之 and Z hu Z iqing 朱自清, Q ia n Z h o n g sh u ’s

錢鍾書 On the Art of Poetry 談藝錄, th e p o e try c ritic ism o f Y u a n K e jia 袁可嘉, Y a n g

Zhouhan’s 楊周翰 criticism of W ang M eng’s 王蒙 novels, and so on. In fact, it is not such a destitute tradition after all–“richer than we imagine” 比我們想象的富厚16—despite the considerable obstacles faced by these schools of thought.

Form alist criticism was disparaged from the 1950s to ‘70s, Zhao contends, because

“p ayin g atten tion to fo rm m ean s d estro yin g th e w o rk’s m ystery an d en co u ragin g critical read in g: a text w h ich is view ed as an assem b lage o f w o rd s an d sign s can n o t en jo y th e glo ry o f wholeness, nor can it possess the truthfulness that comes from ‘reIecting reality’” 關注形式，

必然破壞作品的神祕，必然導致批判性的閱讀：文本如果被視為語言和符號的集合，

14 Zhao Yiheng 趙毅衡, “ W o m e n x u y a o b u y ig e ‘y u y a n zh u a n zh e’ m a ?” 我們需要補一個「語言轉折」嗎？ Yijiusijiu yihou 一九四九以後, e d . W a n g D e w e i 王德威, C h e n S ih e , 陳思和, a n d X u Z id o n g 許子東 (H o n g K o n g: O xfo rd U n iversity P ress, 2 0 1 0 ): 3 1 3 -3 2 3 .

15 Ib id . 3 1 6 .

16 Ib id . 3 1 3 .

10 就不可能享有完整性的光彩，也不可能具有「反映現實」而獲得的真理性.17 ⌧e resistance to analysis described here is not unique to China or this period–Zhao’s shift in term in o lo g y o ver th e co u rse o f th at sen ten ce fro m “w o rk ” (zuopin 作品) to “text” (wenben 文

本) su b tly rem in d s th e read er o f th e sam e d em yth o lo g izatio n in E u ro p ean literatu re, described and enacted by Roland Barthes’s program m atic essay “From W ork to Text.” But

Zhao also $nds Chinese intellectual climes to be inhospitable to formalist criticism for their ow n unique reasons. Pre-existing philosophical traditions in China, he claim s, di9ered fu n d am en tally fro m fo rm alist th o u g h t:

Traditional Chinese criticism em phasized intuition. ⌧e traditional reverence for concrete appearances [as opposed to abstractions] em phasized perception, w hile the discourse of jin gjie 18 e m p h a size d e x p e rie n c e ; in th e stu d y o f n a rra tiv e lite ra tu re , in te rlin e a l c o m m e n ta ry is the de$ning feature of Chinese $ction criticism, whose stress is on intuition–it is not the careful, detailed logical analysis of the W est.

中國傳統批評注重直覺，「尚象」思維重感悟，「境界」之說重體驗；在敘述文學的研 究中，評點成為中國小說批評的特色。評點家的文字重在直覺，而非西方那種周密 細緻的邏輯分析.19

⌧e distinction between Western precision and Chinese vagueness seems to be a primary motivation behind Zhao’s call for a linguistic turn, as he says “Structuralism is essentially di9erent from traditional Chinese ways of thinking; it was di6cult for it to becom e popular in C h in e se a c a d e m ic c irc le s a c c u sto m e d to ro u g h , im p re c ise c o n c e p ts” 結構主義本質上與

17 Ib id . 3 1 3 .

18 ⌧e term jin gjie 境界, c e n tra l to th e a e sth e tic p h ilo so p h y o f W a n g G u o w e i 王國維, a m o n g o th e rs, h a s b e e n translated as “the w orld,” but also includes subjective and m oral connotations. See Jiang W u, “W hat is Jin gjie? D e$n in g C o n fu cian S p iritu ality in th e M o d ern C h in ese In tellectu al C o n text,” Monumenta Serica 5 0 (2 0 0 2 ): 4 4 1 -4 6 2 .

19 Ib id . 3 2 2 .

11 中國傳統思維方式相差，它很難在習慣於粗疏概念的中國學界流行起來.20

Zhao’s argument is vulnerable to charges of Orientalism or Eurocentrism, but he also

$nds a powerful justi$cation for form alism from within the Chinese context:

⌧e interest in formalist criticism in the Chinese academy during the early 1980s was partly an e9ort to escape the set system s of authoritative thought and academ ic m odels, but m ore im portantly, form alist criticism lacked any apparent ideological color. O n a background of so lid red , ‘co lo rless’ is itself a d eep co lo r.

八十年代上半期的中國學術界對形式文論的興趣，一方面是為了擺脫既定的權威思 想體系和學術規範外，更重要的在於，形式文論沒有鮮明的意識形態色彩，在大紅 色背景上，無色彩本身就是濃重的色彩.21

Zhao’s phrasing, “apparent id e o lo g ic a l c o lo r” 鮮明的意識形態色彩, is k e y. H e d o e s n o t deny that form alist criticism has its ideological color, but in his view, it does, or did, escape th e co n strain ts o f th e p re-existin g p arad ig m s p o st-C u ltu ral R evo lu tio n ; fo rm alist criticism could serve as a Barthesian “neutral” w hich confounded the existing paradigm . Z hao does not seem to wish to deny the social content of literature or evade questions of politics entirely; he just w ishes to rem ind us, paraphrasing Yang Z houhan, that literature “proceeds fro m fo rm to co n ten t” 從形式到內容.22

What would it mean to “$ll in” a linguistic turn in Chinese intellectual history? In th is fo rm u latio n o f th e p ro b lem , fo rm alist criticism m ig h t tak e o n th e lo g ic o f th e D errid ean su p p lem en t (C h in e se : tib u 替補): d o e s fo rm a list c ritic ism e n ric h th e e x istin g lite ra ry d isc o u rse

20 Ib id . 3 1 7 .

21 “W om en xuyao bu yige ‘yuyan zhuanzhe’ m a?” 316.

22 Ib id .

12 in C hina, “a plenitude enriching another plenitude,” or does it counterbalance and overturn that discourse, “add[in g] on ly to replace”?23 D o e s Z h a o p ro je c t a la c k o n to C h in e se sch o larsh ip b ased o n h is read in g o f W estern sch o larsh ip ? Is Z h ao’s u n d erstan d in g o f literary history painfully Eurocentric, fatally teleological? To a certain extent, the answer depends on our understanding of form . Is it an objective fact of literature, or a cultural, textual, discursive construct? “Form” cannot have the sam e place in one culture’s literary tradition as it has in an other’s; n ot on ly do form s have histories (as the son n et), “form ” itself has a history.

A genealogy of form, in the Western context, reveals ambivalences in the term’s connotations that contain the seeds of later debates over form alism . In Keywords, R a y m o n d

Williams locates two early meanings of the English word “form” which followed from its

Latin origins: on the one hand, form is “(i) a visible or outw ard shape, w ith a strong sense of th e p h y sical b o d y, ... [as in ] ‘fo rm is m o st fray le, a fad in g Iatterin g sh o w e,’”; at th e sam e tim e, it is “(ii) an essen tial sh ap in g p rin cip le, m ak in g in d eterm in ate m aterial in to a determ inate or speci$c being or thing: ‘the body was only mat[t]er, of which (the soul) were th e fo u rm e.’” 24 In th e $rst d e $n itio n , th e fo rm o f so m e th in g is o n ly its su p e r$c ia l, v isib le aspect, w hile its essential, anim ating substance lies beneath the surface, w hereas in the second de$nition, the form is the “essential shaping principle” that allow s the otherwise incidental material to take shape. In literary studies, Williams continues, formalism’s

23 Jacq u es D errid a, Of Grammatology, tra n s. G a y a tri S p iv a k (B a ltim o re : Jo h n s H o p k in s U n iv e rsity P re ss, 1976): 144-5.

24 Raymond Williams, Keywords: a Vocabulary of Culture and Society (N e w Y o rk : O x fo rd U n iv e rsity P re ss, 1976): 113.

13 predom inant em phasis was on the speci$c, intrinsic characteristics of a literary work, which req u ired an alysis ‘in its o w n term s’ b efo re an y o th er k in d o f d iscu ssio n , an d esp ecially so cial or ideological analysis, was relevant or even possible. ⌧e intricacies of the subsequent argum ent are extraordinary. ⌧ere w as a sim ple opposition (bringing into play a received distinction between [the $rst de$nition of] form ... and content) between a form alism lim ited to ‘purely’ aesthetic ... interests and a M arxism concerned w ith social content and id e o lo g ic a l te n d e n c y.25

⌧us the “formal” has been associated in literary studies with the purely aesthetic or textual, while its opposite term (“content”) must be identi$ed with the social, historical, ideological.

Stephen Cohen sees this opposition as the basis for no less than the entire history of m odern academ ic literary study: “W ithout overm uch sim pli$cation, the institutional history of literary studies over th e last h un dred or so years can be ch aracterized as a series of agon istic oscillations between the discipline’s two m ighty opposites, form and history.”26

As Cohen also points out, however, “in practice, of course, none of these critical methods was so absolute as to exclude entirely either form or history.”27 F ro m th e fo rm a list perspective, form itself–its categories of identity and di9erence–is historically and culturally constrained, so that w hat constitutes a distinctive feature in one context m ay be incidental in another, and w hat counts as identity in one place m ay be di9erence som ew here else. W hereas structuralist literary theory suggests that it m ight be possible to create an objective “discovery procedure”–formal procedures by which one could discover and

25 Ib id . 1 1 4 .

26 Stephen Cohen, “Introduction” in Shakespeare and H istorical Form alism (B u rlin g to n , V T : A sh g a te , 2 0 0 7 ) 1 . For exam ple, he notes the trajectory from “old,” positivistic historicism to New Criticism and then to New Historicism, or from structuralism/poststructuralism to cultural studies to “the revenge of the aesthetic.”

27 Ib id .

14 describe exhaustively the patterns of an unknow n la n g u e–for locating signi$cant patterns in a text, Jonathan C uller disagrees:

To suggest that the methods of phonological analysis give us a procedure for the discovery of poetic patterns begs more questions than it resolves. ... W hat will count as a relationship of equivalence? H ow m any distinctive features m ust tw o phonem es share if they are to count as related ? H o w far ap art can tw o p h o n em es b e if th eir relatio n sh ip is to tak e e9ect, an d is th is distance proportional to the num ber of distinctive features they share or does it depend on syn tactic an d sem an tic co n sid eratio n s?28

In o rd er to u n d erstan d th e fo rm , its stru ctu res o f id en tity an d d i9eren ce, w e m u st alread y have som e know ledge of the content; Culler writes that

even in its ow n province the task of linguistics is not to tell us w hat sentences m ean; it is rath er to exp lain h o w th ey h ave th e m ean in gs w h ich sp eak ers o f a lan gu age give th em . If linguistic analysis w ere to propose m eanings w hich speakers of the language could not accept, it w ould be the linguists w ho w ere w rong, not the speakers.29

From the historicist side as well, the social and ideological content of a work depends for its expression on form al elem ents. W hat w e are left w ith is w hat Ellen R ooney calls “a paradox in the sense that M ichel Foucault applied to the notion of discontinuity: form is ‘both an instrum ent and an object of research.... it divides up the $e ld o f w h ic h it is a n e 9e c t.’ ⌧e problem of form encom passes our e9orts to resolve it.”30

For this reason, an attem pt to account for modern Chinese poetry cannot take form for gran ted, eith er as an in ciden tal em bellish m en t or as itself an object of in terpretation , but rath er m u st n ecessarily d eal w ith fo rm in its rich h isto rical an d id eo lo gical co n text. A t th e

28 Jo n ath an C u ller, Structuralist Poetics: Structuralism , Linguistics and the Study of Literature (N e w Y o rk : Routledge, 2002): 76.

29 Ib id . 8 6 .

30 Ellen Rooney, “Form and Contentment,” Modern Language Quarterly 6 1 (M a r. 2 0 0 0 ): 1 8 .

15 same time, the very problems of Chinese modernity–the possibility of reform or revolution, of adapting W estern learning to a Chinese setting, of writing in a sem icolonial or postcolonial condition–are themselves questions of separating essence from appearance, form from content. In other w ords, consistent w ith the paradox of form and history w ithin literary study, the larger questions of C hinese m odernity that encom pass the problem atic of th e fo rm an d co n ten t o f literatu re are them selves q u e stio n s o f fo rm . T o d e m o n stra te th is point, let us consider, in addition to the M ay Fourth literary revolution, another

“revo lution”: th e “revo lution in th e realm of po etry” 詩界革命 advertised by th e p ro m in e n t refo rm ers o f th e last tw o d ecad es o f th e Q in g– Huang Zunxian 黃遵憲 (1 8 4 8 -1 9 0 5 ), an d

Liang Qichao 梁啟超 (1873-1929)–both of whom considered carefully the implications of revo lu tio n w ith resp ect to p o etic fo rm , an d vice-versa.

Re: form

As one of the poets most closely associated with Liang Qichao’s poetic revolution,

Huang Zunxian was preoccupied with negotiating past and present, form and content. In th e preface to Draft of Poems from the Cottage in the Human Realm 人竟盧詩草字序, w ritte n in

1891, Huang expresses both frustration and hope tow ards his relationship with literary tradition, especially how to m anage form ti 體 and “spirit” sh en 神. In a p a ssa g e th a t in retro sp ect seem s lik e a w arn in g to th e M ay F o u rth vern acu lar p o ets, h e w rites: “I w as b o rn after the ancients. O ut of ancient poets, there are probably w ell over a hundred w ho could be

16 called great m asters. If one w ishes to discard the ‘dregs of the ancients’ and not be constrained by w hat they did, this is truly an arduous task” 士生古人之後。古人之詩。號專

門名家者。無慮百數十家。欲棄去古人之糟粕。而不為古人所束縛。誠戛戛其難.31 A t the sam e tim e, H uang had several prescriptions for how to “discard the dregs” w hile still hanging on to what was valuable from the poetic tradition:

I h ave estab lish ed a realm of p o etry in m y b reast. F o r on e th in g, I h ave retu rn ed to th e fo rm of m etaphor and allegory em ployed by the ancients. For another, I set the form of parallel couplets in m otion w ith the spirit of w hat is singular.32 ⌧ird , I ta k e u p th e sp irit a n d lo g ic o f th e Lisao a n d yu efu w ith o u t c o p y in g th e ir a p p e a ra n c e . L a st, I a d o p t th e A n c ie n t P ro se masters’ method of expansion and contraction, separating and joining, and adapt it for poetry.

嘗於胸中設一詩境。一 曰。復古人比興之體。一曰。以 單行之神。運 排偶之體。一曰。取 離騷樂府之神理而不襲其貌。一曰。用古文家伸縮離合之法以入詩.33

In th is p assage, H u an g h as set u p several critical d istin ctio n s: “fo rm ” (ti) is p laced in opposition to “spirit” (sh en ), w h ich in tu rn is g ro u p ed alo n g sid e “lo g ic” li 理 in o p p o sitio n to

“ap p earan ce” mao 貌. F o rm , to H u a n g , is th e su p e r$c ia l a p p e a ra n c e o f p o e try, w h ile so m eth in g m o re essen tial lies elsew h ere, in th e sp irit o r lo gic. ⌧is co n $gu ratio n p red icts

Liang Qichao’s later argum ent in his 1902 Poetry Talks from the Ice-Drinker’s Studio 飲冰室

31 Huang Zunxian 黃遵憲, Renjinglu shicao jianzhu 人境盧詩草箋註 (H o n g K o n g: Z h o n gh u a sh u ju , 1 9 7 3 ) 1. ⌧e preface has been translated into English by M ichelle Yeh in Kirk Denton, ed., Modern Chinese Literary ✏ought (S ta n fo rd : S ta n fo rd U n iv e rsity P re ss, 1 9 9 6 ): 6 9 -7 0 a n d J.D . S c h m id t, Within the Human Realm (C a m b rid g e : C a m b rid g e U n iv e rsity P re ss, 1 9 9 4 ): 5 1 . W e w ill re tu rn to th is p a ssa g e a g a in b e lo w .

32 Yeh and Schm idt disagree on the interpretation of the phrase dan hang o r dan xing 單行. F o r S c h m id t, it refers to “n o n p arallel w ritin g,” i.e. “sin gle”- o r “o d d ”-lin ed w ritin g. Y eh tran slates “in d ivid u al” acco rd in g to the com m on m eaning of this com pound, m eaning proceeding alone or in one direction. I believe that, either w ay, dan hang/dan xing is p la c e d in o p p o sitio n to paiou “p a ra lle l c o u p le ts,” so m y tra n sla tio n a tte m p ts to reIect th e o p p o sitio n o f p arallel an d sin g le w ith o u t sp ecify in g w h at is “sin g le.”

33 Renjinglu shicao 1 . E m p h a sis a d d e d .

17 詩話:

In a tim e o f tran sitio n , th ere is n ecessarily revo lu tio n . B u t a revo lu tio n m u st refo rm th e sp irit and not [just] the form . Lately w e often speak of a revolution in the realm of poetry, but if one considers revolution to be a page covered in piles of new vocabulary, that is no di9erent from the M anchu governm ent’s super$cial legal reform s or “restoration .” T o express n ew id e a s in th e o ld sty le , th a t is th e a c tu a lity o f re v o lu tio n .

過渡時代。必有革命。然革命者當革其精神。非革其形式。吾黨近好言詩界革命。雖然。 若以堆積滿紙新名詞為革命。是又滿州政府變法維新之類也。能以舊風格含新意境。 斯可以舉革命之實矣.34

Both Huang and Liang consider what they call “spirit” to be the essential aspect, while

“form ” is m erely a kind of su p er$cial appearan ce, mao– recallin g R aym o n d W illiam s’s double-reading of “form ,” we can observe Huang and Liang favoring the $rst reading, where form is a shell for the essential spirit. L iang uses the now -com m on term for form , xingshi 形

式, w h ic h o v e rla p s to a c e rta in e x te n t w ith th e b ro a d e r a n d m o re c o m p lic a te d te rm ti, used by Huang.

Many of the ambivalences and contradictions contained in the Western word “form” are, in fact, closely m irrored by the C hinese term ti. ⌧e b a sic m e a n in g s o f ti a s a tte ste d in th e Hanyu da cidian 漢語大辭典 revolve around the physical body (sh en ti 身體) an d th e physical form s of things (xingti 形體). T w o related sets o f co n trad ictio n s arise, h o w ever, in its extended m eanings. O n the one hand, ti re fe rs to th e “e n tire ty ” (zhengti 整體; zongti 總體), while on the other hand, it may refer to the “main part of a thing” 事物的主要部分 (as in zhuti 主體, “su b je c t,” a s o f a n a c tio n o r o f a p ie c e o f w ritin g ). S e c o n d , ti re fe rs to th e e x te rio r

34 Liang Qichao 梁起超, Yinbingshi wenji 飲冰室文集 (T aip ei: Z h o n gh u a sh u ju , 1 9 6 0 ): 4 5 .4 1 .

18 appearance of a thing (waiguan xingshi 外觀形式); it also refers to “co n ten t” (neirong 內容).

Stephen O w en de$nes ti a s th e o u tw a rd , m a te ria l o r lite ra ry m a n ife sta tio n o f a n in w a rd in d iv id u a tin g n a tu re (xing 性);35 its m e a n in g s in th e c o n te x t o f w ritin g c a n ra n g e fro m

“n o rm ative fo rm ” to “gen re” to “style.” ⌧e b read th of ti’s m eanings is apparent in H uang’s preface, where he speaks not only of “the form of parallel couplets” 排偶之體, b u t a lso “th e form of m etaphor and allegory em ployed by the ancients” 古人比興之體. Y e t H u a n g ’s contrast betw een sh en a n d ti is a n a lo g o u s to L ia n g ’s c o n tra st b e tw e e n sh en a n d xingshi: changing the form w ill not create a revolution; it is the “spirit” or “logic” or “ideas” that w e must renovate.

Poetic revolution thus form ulated inescapably involves questions of form and content, of the essential and the incidental. ⌧e apparent contradiction in the phrase

“C hinese m odernity,” deriving from the association of C hinese-ness w ith the old and unchanging, requires for resolution an essentializing gesture: can som e Chinese essence su rvive a p ro cess o f m o d ern izatio n ? ⌧e fam o u s slo gan w h ich p arap h rases th e Exhortation to

Study 勸學篇 of Zhang Zhidong 張之洞 (1837-1909), for instance, advocates “C hinese learn in g for essen ce [ti]; W estern learning for utility” 中學為體；西學為用;36 in th is c a se , th e ti is still th e th in g th a t re m a in s c o n sta n t d u rin g c h a n g e , a s in L ia n g a n d H u a n g ’s p o e tic

35 Stephen O w en, Readings in Chinese Literary ✏ought (C a m b rid g e , M a ss.: C o u n c il o n E a st A sia n S tu d ie s, Harvard University, 1992): 210.

36 Edward Gunn, Rewriting Chinese: Style and Innovation in Twentieth-Century Chinese Prose (S ta n fo rd : Stanford University Press, 1991): 33.

19 revo lu tio n , b u t in stead o f b ein g so m eth in g in cid en tal, a “m ere fo rm ,” ti is e x a c tly th e

Chinese “essence” that must be preserved despite a modernization driven by Western le a rn in g . ⌧e a m b iv a le n c e o f ti, lik e th e a m b iv a le n c e o f th e w o rd “fo rm ,” is fu rth e r e x p re sse d in the C hinese translation of “revolution.” L iang’s term for revolution, gem ing 革命, c o m e s fro m th e Book of Changes (Yijing 易經) an d m ean s literally “strip p in g th e M an d ate [o f

Heaven].”37 ⌧e c h a ra c te r ge re fe rs a t ro o t to a n im a l h id e th a t h a s b e e n strip p e d o f fu r a n d processed as leather, and also to the process of stripping away the fur and other undesired materials during manufacture. Ge is w h a t y o u d o a n d ge is a lso w h a t y o u g e t; o n ly b y rem o vin g w h at is u n w an ted can o n e arrive at an im p ro ved versio n o f w h at is essen tial. Y et

Liang’s statem ent on poetic revolution represents another, paradoxical approach to the sam e problem : if you change what is essential (the spirit), then you don’t have to worry about changing the appearance (the form ). If poetic form is incidental to the “actuality of revo lu tio n ,” th en w h y is it th e o n e th in g th at stays th e sam e? ⌧e u n d erstan d in g o f fo rm ’s place in poetry is almost the opposite of those contained in Hu Shi’s 1916 essays and Bian

Zhilin’s 1953 talk; the late Qing Poetic Revolution and the May Fourth literary revolution, di9er not in the degree to which they endeavored to revolutionize poetry, but rather in their determ ination of what was necessary for revolution, particularly in their understanding of form as essen tial or in ciden tal.

Like Liang, Huang, though he does not use the term gem ing, a lso stru g g le s w ith

37 Schm idt 48.

20 siftin g o u t th e in essen tial fro m th e p o etry o f p revio u s eras. L et u s retu rn to th e co m p lain t th at b eg an th is d iscu ssio n : “If o n e w ish es to d iscard th e ‘d reg s o f th e an cien ts’ an d n o t b e constrained by w hat they did, this is truly an arduous task.” ⌧e phrase “dregs of the ancients” 古人之糟粕 com es from the story of W heelw right Bian 輪扁 in th e Zhuangzi, where Bian argues that anything that can be written down in a book cannot be worth much, sin ce in m ak in g w h eels, w h at is essen tial m u st b e learn ed h an d s-o n . O n th e o n e h an d , w e may not want to apply the allusion too strictly, since for Huang, both the essential poetic know ledge and the dregs to be discarded com e from ancient books. O n the other hand,

Huang expresses an extremely relativistic view of history that is, in some ways, nearly as rad ical as W h eelw righ t B ian’s. W h en H u an g sp eak s o f “d iscard [in g] th e ‘dregs o f th e an cien ts’ and not be[ing] constrained” by w hat they did, he is also referring to one of his ow n poem s, th e seco n d o f th e Random Feelings 雜感 poem s:

⌧e gods gave form to Chaos And set the heavens turning. Not even Lishou38 c o u ld c o u n t How many thousands of years it’s been. Fu Xi and the Yellow Em peror39 in v e n te d w ritin g Five thousand years before today; But to those who will com e after me, I am like an an cien t of h igh an tiq u ity. Vulgar Confucians love to worship the past; Every day they burrow into old papers. If a w o rd d o esn’t ap p ear in th e Six C lassics, ⌧ey don’t dare to use it in their poems. ⌧e dregs discarded by the ancients

38 According to legend, Lishou 隸首 in v e n te d m a th e m a tic s.

39 Fu Xi 伏羲 and the Yellow Em peror 黃帝 (also k n o w n as X u an yu an 軒轅) w ere legen d ary em p ero rs o f China, who each, according to di9erent sources, invented writing.

21 Make their mouths water. ⌧ey habitually rob from others out of habit And recklessly comm it all manner of crimes. Nüw a made us all out of the yellow earth, So how could we m oderns be better or worse than the ancients? Today will be antiquity before long; At what point can you draw a line? Radiant light streams in my window, My censor burns with smoke. On my left is placed my $ne inkstone, And on my right lies pages of the best paper. My hand writes what my mouth says– How could I be constrained by the ancients! After all, today’s slang, If I p u t it d o w n on p ap er, Will become august classical literature For people $ve thousands years in the future.

大塊鑿混沌，渾渾旋大圜； 隸首不能算，知有幾萬年。 羲軒造書契，今始歲五千； 以我視後人，若居三代先。 俗儒好尊古，日日故紙研； 六經字所无，不敢入詩篇。 古人棄糟粕，見之口流涎； 沿習甘剽盗，妄造從罪愆。 黄土同搏人，今古何愚賢； 即今忽已古，斷自何代前？ 明窗敞流離，高爐爇香烟； 左陳端溪碩，右列薛濤箋； 我手寫我口，古豈能拘牽！ 即今流俗語，我若登簡編； 五千年後人，驚為古斕斑。40

⌧e idea that historical time is relative, expressed in lines 7-8 and 17-20, which elevates the present to equal footing with high antiquity, is an attack on the reverential attitude tow ards th e p ast o f th e “vu lg ar C o n fu cian s.” A t th e sam e tim e, it d en ies th e p o ssib ility o f a rad ical break that underlies most conceptions of revolution and modernity: in the logic of this poem , no matter how modern your present is, it is destined to becom e ancient; “At what

40 Renjinglu shicao jianzhu 1 5 .

22 point could you draw a line?” ⌧is foreclosure of historical division is consistent with the opening im age of the poem , the story from the Zhuangzi in w h ic h th e E m p e ro rs o f th e

North and South Seas (named Shu 儵 and H u 忽 resp ectively, o r to geth er sh u h u 儵忽, meaning “hasty”) m e e t in th e m id d le to g iv e th e E m p e ro r o f th e C e n te r, w h o se n a m e is

Hundun (hundun 混沌 or 渾沌, m e a n in g “c h a o s” ), th e se n so ry o rg a n s th a t h e la c k e d .

Whereas the story of Genesis takes seven days to go from a world “formless and void” to the creation of m an, the form less H undun is given one new ori$ce each day w ith w hich to see, hear, eat, and breathe, until after seven days–in a twist quite unlike Genesis–he dies. ⌧e

Zhuangzi’s story of anti-creation rem inds us of the danger of recklessly di9erentiating things, of im posing form s onto som ething that was originally com plete and whole unto itself. Even the creation m yth referenced in the poem w hich resem bles G enesis m ore closely, that of the goddess N üw a molding hum ans out of earth, is invoked for the purpose of recalling that we are all made of the same stu9, so none of us is inherently worthier than another–in a sense to b rin g th e read er b ack to th e u n d i9eren tiated clay. B rin g in g fo rm to c h a o s, p la c in g distinctions on the undi9erentiated, is not purely creative–it is also destructive.

After asserting the relativity of historical time, Huang brings the reader to the im m e d ia te p re se n t, th e sc e n e o f w ritin g . W e a re p o sitio n e d w ith th e p o e t b y a b rig h t w in d o w , in a cloud of incense sm oke, facing the tools of literary creation, w hen H uang m akes his most famous pronouncement: “My hand writes what my mouth says,” another statement th at p re$g u res M ay F o u rth literary th o u g h t. W ith in th e co n text o f th e p o em , th is fo rm u la is

23 a corrective to lines 11-12, “If a w o rd d o esn’t ap p ear in th e Six C lassics,/ ⌧ey d o n’t d are to use it in their poem s.” “Today’s slang” (jijin liu su yu 即今流俗語, m o re a c c u ra te ly

“L anguage that circulates am ong regular people today”) w ould be just the sam e as “august classical literature,” as long as you set it dow n on paper and w ait $ve thousand years. H uang su ggests th at th e an cien ts, fo r th eir p art, w ere o n ly w ritin g d o w n w h at w as co m m o n an d familiar to them–we can make our own poetry new if we just do what the ancients did, provided we understand what the ancients were really doing. ⌧e argum ent is similar to

Liang Qichao’s borrowing of the phrase “make new the people” from ✏e Great Learning 大

學; a s X ia o b in g T a n g e x p la in s, fo r L ia n g , “ ⌧e ta sk o f m a k in g n e w a m o u n te d to a re tu rn to th e essen ce o f trad itio n as a h isto rical fo rm atio n .” 41

⌧e dialectic of the old and the new determines that the new need not be totally antithetical to th e o ld b ecau se th ese tw o categ o ries, w h en n o t tak en as ab so lu tes, d escrib e a co n tin u o u s process of renewing. Even the act of ‘preserving’ can be creative and contribute to the developm ent of the new, and ‘conservatism’ may even have a positive impact.42

⌧e important question is not new or old, it’s foolishness or worthiness (yu xian 愚賢). ⌧e key to reform , again, is stripping aw ay the dregs in order to re$ne the essence. Liang explains

“m aking new ” in the 1902 Discourse on the New Citizen 新民說, “ O n th e o n e h a n d , it is to purify what one already has and to renew it; on the other, it is to acquire what one does not have so as to make new. If either one is missing, there will be no success.”43

41 Tang Xiaobing, Global Space and the Nationalist Discourse of Modernity: the Historical ✏inking of Liang Qichao (S tan fo rd : S tan fo rd U n iversity P ress, 1 9 9 6 ): 1 9 .

42 Ib id . 2 5 .

43 Quoted Tang 25.

24 White-Washed: New Poetry, Meaning, and Transparency

And what happens when revolution targets the wrong aspect of a thing, when what was discarded as inessential turns out to be vital? Such is the criticism leveled against the May

Fourth movem ent from the end of the twentieth century by those who long for, in Jianhua

Chen’s words, an “organic past,”44 b e fo re C h in a’s tra d itio n w a s fo rsw o rn a n d W e ste rn c u ltu ra l form s w ere w elcom ed in. Z heng M in 鄭敏 (b . 1 9 2 0 ), o n e o f th e N in e L eaves S ch o o l 九葉

派 of M odernist poets active in the 1940s, incited an intense debate over the legacy of New

Poetry in light of the M ay Fourth linguistic reform s, when she published an article in 1993 entitled “A R etrospective from the End of the C entury: C hinese Language R eform and

Chinese New Poetry Composition” 世紀末的回顧：漢語語言變革與中國新詩創作.45

According to Zheng, May Fourth linguistic and literary reformers such as Hu Shi and Chen

Duxiu 陳獨秀 (1 8 7 9 -1 9 4 2 ) h ad set N ew P o etry u p fo r failu re b y in sistin g o n its disconnection from any Chinese poetry that had com e before it.

First, as we consider the achievem ents of New Poetry, can we include the glorious accom plishm ents of the several thousand years of C hinese poetry that cam e prior to the tw en tieth cen tu ry? I w o u ld an sw er n o , b ecau se th e vern acu lar literatu re m o vem en t an d su b seq u en t N ew L iteratu re m o vem en t fro m th e b egin n in g o f th e cen tu ry d eterm in ed to detach them selves from classical literature. From language to content they negated continuity and endeavored to m ake w riters turn their backs on classical poetry.

44 Jianhua C hen, “C anon Form ation and Linguistic Turn: Literary D ebates in R epublican C hina, 1919-1949,” Beyond the May Fourth Paradigm , e d . K a i-w in g C h o w e t a l. (L a n h a m , M a ry la n d : L e x in g to n B o o k s, 2 0 0 8 ): 63.

45 Zheng Min 鄭敏, “ S h ijim o d e h u ig u : H a n y u y u y a n b ia n g e y u Z h o n g g u o x in sh i c h u a n g zu o ” 世紀末的回 顧：漢語語言變革與中國新詩創作, Jiegou–jiegou shijiao: yuyan, wenhua, pinglun 結構─解構視角： 語言．文化．評論 (Beijing: Qinghua daxue chubanshe, 1998): 91-120.

25 首先是今天在考慮新詩創作成績時能不能將 20 世紀以前幾千年漢詩的光輝績業考 慮在內？我的回答是不能。這由於我們在世紀初的白話文及後來的新文學運動中立 意要自絕於古典文學，從語言到內容是否定繼承，竭力使創作界遺忘和背離古典詩 詞.46

Zheng’s argument continues the conversation from the 1980s lamenting the “cultural ru p tu re” wenhua duanlie 文化斷裂 caused by the M ay Fourth m ovem ent and prom oting a

“search fo r ro o ts” xungen 尋根.47 Yet, as H enry Z hao observes, Z heng’s article w as surprising for the w ay it approached an old problem from a totally di9erent perspective, nam ely that of postm odern, and especially poststructuralist, thought;48 Z h e n g ’s p rim a ry c ritiq u e o f H u S h i and C hen D uxiu’s literary revolution is that it is “logocentric.” Z hao w as actually one of the harshest critics of Zheng M in’s essay, labeling it “m ainland neoconservatism” 中國新保守主

義 which had ironically proceeded from mis-application and misinterpretation of Western rad ical th o u gh t; an d yet, w asn’t Z h en g’s attem p t to en gage w ith p o ststru ctu ralist th eo ry in the re-evaluation of the C hinese w ritten language a kind of “linguistic turn,” such as Z hao himself would com e to advocate? In fact, Jianhua Chen has called Zheng M in’s essay exactly th at: a seco n d C h in ese “lin g u istic tu rn ,” a reactio n ag ain st baihua so m e se v e n ty -$v e y e a rs

46 Ib id . 9 1 .

47 See Catherine Vance Yeh, “R oot Literature of the 1980s: M ay Fourth as a Double Burden,” ✏e Appropriation of Cultural Capital: China’s May Fourth Project, e d . M ile n a D o leZelová-V elingerová and Old\ich Král (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2001): 230-233 et passim.

48 Zhao Yiheng 趙毅衡, “ ‘H o u x u e’ y u Z h o n g g u o x in b a o sh o u zh u y i” 後學與中國新保守主義, Jiu lin g niandai de ‘houxue’ lunzheng 9 0 年代的後學論爭, e d . W a n g H u i 汪暉 (H ong K ong: X ianggang Z hongw en daxue chubanshe, 1998): 137.

26 after the initial linguistic turn brought on by the literary revolution.49 ⌧e re is a d i9e re n c e between “linguistic turn” in the Rortian sense and in the sense Chen applies here, meaning sim p ly a m o m en t o f great lin gu istic ch an ge, b u t Z h en g’s essay still rep resen ts a n ego tiatio n with poststructuralism and a critical examination of the understanding of language that inspired the developm ent of N ew Poetry.

For all of its Iaws, Zheng M in’s essay challenges the binaristic thinking of much tw en tieth -cen tu ry C h in ese literary th o u g h t, p articu larly its o b sessio n w ith au th en ticity, a ten d en cy w h ich p ro m o ted th e vern acu lar o ver th e literary, th e p o p u lar o ver th e elite, th e rep resen tatio n al o ver th e ab stract, etc., lead in g to th e regim e o f tran sp aren cy th at a tru e linguistic turn w ould challenge. Z heng M in exam ines the rhetoric of the vernacular literature movement critically, especially its assumption that an imitation of the spoken vernacular would be not only the plainest, clearest, most-accessible form of the written language, but th at su ch virtu es o u tw eig h ed an y o th er co n sid eratio n s. ⌧e id eo lo g y o f th e bai 白 in baihua is extrem ely heavy-handed: the w ritten vernacular should be clear (mingbai 明白), clean (潔

白), d irect (坦白); acco rd in g to a lo g ic o f th e essen tial an d th e in cid en tal, th e bai is o n ly th e su b stan ce w ith n o th in g ad d ed . Z h en g M in , w ith th e b en e$t o f h in d sigh t, su ggests th at in attem pting to strip aw ay the arti$ce from a language, the vernacular literature m ovem ent may have inadvertently stripped away something essential as well:

⌧ey also misjudged the relationship between a language and its users, especially the determ inistic relationship between a people and its mother tongue [sic]. ⌧is in turn

49 Chen 6 4 .

27 im plicates the relationship betw een the developm ent and reform of a language and its ow n tradition. H ow should one reform [a language] in accordance w ith the language’s ow n rules, prevent it from losing, in the process of reshaping itself, the excellence it has built up over its history, from becom ing pale and destitute?

他們也錯誤地判斷語言與使用者的關係，特别是一個民族與他的母語間的無選擇的 關係。這涉及到語言發展與改革與其自身的傳統的關係，如何改革才能符合語言本 身的規律，使語言不會在改造過程失去其在歷史中下的文化精華，而變得蒼白貧乏. 50

By Zheng Min invoking the phrase “pale and destitute” 蒼白貧乏, Z h e n g M in e v in c e s another m eaning of bai: pale, barren, lifeless, dead–ironic, given that it was the classical written language that Hu Shi labeled ‘dead’: “Dead words cannot produce living literature”

死文字不能產生活文學.51

Zheng suggests that literary revolution not only deprived poetry of something essential, it also led to a psychologically dam aging denial of the essential personality of the poets it a9ected. For poets who grew up before the literary revolution, writing vernacular literature w as a form of disingenuous self-expression, w hile classical poetry rem ained the vessel for their m ost personal thoughts.

Due to this kind of arti$cial psychological handicap, Hu, Chen, and many other contem porary authors harbored double, split literary personalities. W hen they needed to express their thoughts and em otions forcefully they used the old form s, and w hen they $lled th e sh o es o f th e literary w arrio r th ey w ro te vern acu lar p o etry, an d w h en ever th ey w ro te vernacular poetry, they strove to be clear and easy to understand at the expense of poetic craft.

由於這種人為的心理障礙，胡、陳以及不少其他同時代作家養成雙重、分裂的文學人 格，他們當需要强烈的表達自己的情感和思想時就用舊體，而當他們履行文學鬥士 的責任時就寫白話詩，每當寫白話詩時，力求明白易懂而放棄詩的藝術.52

50 Ib id . 1 0 0 . S ee b elow fo r a d iscu ssio n o f th e p h rase “a p eo p le’s m o th er to n gu e.”

51 H u S h i q u a n ji 1 .5 4 .

28 In ad d itio n to H u S h i an d C h en D u xiu , Z h en g cites early n ew p o et L iu D ab ai 劉大白

(1 8 8 0 -1 9 3 2 ) as an exam p le o f a vern acu lar p o et w h o also w ro te in th e classical id io m , b u t

Zhou Zuoren 周作人 (1 8 8 5 -1 9 6 7 ), L u X u n 魯迅 (1 8 8 1 -1 9 3 6 ), G u o M o ru o 郭沫若

(1 8 9 2 -1 9 7 8 ), S h en C o n g w en 沈從文 (1 9 0 2 -1 9 8 8 ), F en g Z h i 馮至 (1 9 0 5 -1 9 9 3 ), an d o f course M ao Z edong could serve as m ore prom inent cases of w riters w ho continued to express them selves in classical poetry despite supportin g the cause of vern acular literature.53 O n th e one hand, Zheng M in describes a situation where an author is perhaps unable to com m unicate as e9ectively in one form versus another, a situation not unlike an adult learner of a second language–like Hu Shi and his unbound feet, which never can take on the shape of feet which grew naturally. O n the other hand, Zheng suggests that there is a kind of dishonesty at work in this code-switching:

Why would one author use these two radically di9erent kinds of language to compose poetry? ⌧is is a gam e played by a poet with a distorted mentality. Having determ ined that the m asses can only understand pale, lifeless language devoid of deeper m eaning, and th erefo re tak en o n th e ro le o f ‘p ro g ressive p o et’, w ritin g fo r th e m asses, h e w ill w h ip o u t th at kind of crude and sloppy product. But each tim e he restores his original identity as a poet, he will end up writing artistic poetry that is not bai. ... In h is c o n sc io u sn e ss, h e is ta k in g th e masses seriously, but subconsciously, he actually thinks they don’t need to read something artistic, they just need to read som ething they can understand.

同一作者為什麼要以這兩種截然不同的語言來寫詩呢？這是一種扭曲的心態對詩人 的戲弄。於認定大眾只能理解蒼白無内涵的語言，因此一旦進入為大眾寫詩的“進 步詩人”的角色，就拿出那種粗制濫造的貨色，而每當恢復自己作為詩人的本色時， 就又寫出不“白”的藝術詩。... 在上意識上是重視大眾，在無意識中卻是認為他們 不需要藝術，只需看明白就是了.54 52 “Shijim o de huigu: H anyu yuyan biange yu Z hongguo xinshi chuangzuo” 102.

53 See Yang H aosheng, A Modernity in Pre-Modern Tune, P h .D . d isse rta tio n , H a rv a rd U n iv e rsity, 2 0 0 8 (A n n Arbor: UM I, 2008).

54 “Shijim o de huigu: H anyu yuyan biange yu Z hongguo xinshi chuangzuo” 102-3.

29 ⌧is is indeed a new wrinkle: because the style of composition encouraged by literary revo lu tio n is ad o p ted co n scio u sly, it is a ro le, an d b ecau se th is ro le is co n trary to w h at th e poet really believes, “subconsciously,” it is a form of dishonesty, and Zheng M in seem s to agree w ith the $gures she is critiquing that poetry is the realm of authenticity. “⌧e poet’s sp lit p erso n ality m ak es h is w o rk s d ish o n est failu res” 詩人的雙從詩格，使作品失之於不

誠. Z h e n g se e s e v id e n c e o f c a lc u la tio n o n th e p a rt o f w rite rs: “ ‘p o p u la riza tio n ’ is a m o st obscure word, because it is a blood relative of ‘reduction to the low est com m on denom inator’” ‘大眾化’仍是個最晦澀的詞,因為它和‘大路貨’有血緣關係.55

By invoking the word “obscure” (huise 晦澀), Z heng has leveled the m ost serious accusation she can against the polemics of transparency–the regime of transparency itself is guilty of th e w o rst crim e it reco g n izes.

What has happened here? ⌧e “living literature” (huo wenxue 活文學) h as tu rn ed o u t to b e “p ale an d lifeless” (can gbai pin fa 蒼白貧乏); th e p o et’s o rig in al id en tity an d talen t

(bense 本色) h as revealed itself to b e a d isin g en u o u s ro le (jia o se 角色) p layed b y so m eo n e sellin g a p ro d u ct (huose 貨色); h o n esty (ta n b a i 坦白) is falseh o o d (bucheng 不誠); tran sp aren cy (tou m in g 透明, mingbai 明白) is o b scu rity (huise 晦澀). Bai is n o t bai. O n th e one hand, Zheng is certainly engaged in nostalgia for an organic past which did not exist– one where the “real identity” bense 本色 of the poet is clearly visible in his work, as in the old

55 Ib id . 1 0 3 . ⌧e C h in ese term h ere tran slated ‘ob scu re’, huise 晦澀, is sp e c i$c a lly th e ta rg e t o f p o p u list literary d iscou rse. ⌧e fo llo w in g c h a p te r w ill tre a t th is a n d re la te d te rm s e x te n siv e ly.

30 sayin g th at “th e w ritin g is lik e th e m an ” wen ru qi ren 文如其人. ⌧e h ig h ly p ro b le m a tic notion of “national mother tongue” (minzu muyu 民族母語), as if a language–a written language, no less–belonged to a people by virtue of ethnicity, and the fantasy that any language, or a nation, m ight be an entirely closed system through all tim e, are regrettable misinterpretations of Zheng’s theoretical sources and contribute to the “neoconservatism” id e n ti$ed by H enry Z hao. ⌧e proponents of vernacular literature thought they could scrape o9 the paint and reveal the bai u n d e rn e a th , b u t Z h e n g h a s sh o w n th a t bai is ju st a n o th e r color.

Zhao was only one of the scholars to criticize the article; Michelle Yeh responded as well, criticizing Zheng’s argument for being politically and historically reductive and culturally essentializing,56 n o t to m e n tio n “q u e stio n a b le” in its “a p p ro p ria tio n o f poststructuralism .”57 Z h e n g , Y e h su g g e sts, is c o n sc io u sly d ista n c in g h e rse lf fro m th e N e w

Poetry tradition in which she herself had participated due to that tradition’s poor reception globally; Zheng’s article is, for Yeh, another response, direct or otherw ise, to the “W orld

Poetry” debates of the 1990s, in which the achievem ents of Chinese New Poetry were both called into question and defended from a variety of perspectives.58 ⌧o se d e b a te s b e g a n a s a

56 Michelle Yeh, “Chinese Postmodernism and the Cultural Politics of Modern Chinese Poetry,” Cross-Cultural Readings of Chineseness: Narratives, Images, and Interpretations of the 1990s, e d . W e n -h sin Y e h (B e rk e le y, California: Institute of East Asian Studies, 2000): 100-127.

57 Ib id . 1 1 1 .

58 See Stephen O w en, “W hat is W orld Poetry?”, New Republic (1 9 N o v. 1 9 9 0 ): 2 8 -3 2 ; M ic h e lle Y e h , “ C h a y i de youlü: yige huixiang” 差異的憂慮：一個回響, Jin tia n 今天 1 (1991): 94-6; R e y C h o w , Writing Diaspora: Tactics of Intervention in Contemporary Cultural Studies (B lo o m in g to n , In d ia n a : In d ia n a U n iv e rsity Press, 1993): 1-5; Zhang Longxi, “O ut of the Cultural Ghetto: ⌧eory, Politics, and the Study of Chinese

31 resp o n se to th e tran slatio n o f M isty P o etry in to E n glish , sp eci$cally B o n n ie M cD o u gall’s volum e of translations of Bei D ao’s 北島 poetry, ✏e August Sleepwalker.59 Y e h su g g e sts th a t

Zheng’s reference to “international sinology” 世界漢學界 refers to th e u n favo rab le review s

✏e August Sleepwalker re c e iv e d , th a t Z h e n g is p e rh a p s e m b a rra sse d b y th e re c e p tio n N e w

Poetry has found overseas, and she defers to the authority of “international sinology, [which] values these ‘national treasures,’ abandoned in the wastebasket, m ore than C hinese cultural circles do” 世界漢學家比中國文化界更重視這些被抛在字紙簍中的‘國之瑰寶’.60

Haun Saussy, in his own response to Zheng Min, printed both in the same volume as

Yeh’s article and in his ow n Great Walls of Discourse,61 b e g in s h is d isc u ssio n w ith th e q u ip , “ It tak es a xenos lik e m e to im a g in e th a t a C h in e se in te lle c tu a l m o v e m e n t is a ll a b o u t x e n o p h o b ia or xenophilia.”62 I d o n o t $n d th is to b e tru e in e v e ry c a se . D e b a te s in C h in a m a y in v o k e th e

Literature,” Mighty Opposites: From Dichotomies to DiJerences in the Comparative Study of China (S ta n fo rd : Stanford University Press, 1998): 117-50; A n d re w Jo n e s, “ C u ltu ra l L ite ra tu re in th e ‘W o rld ’ L ite ra ry Econom y,” Modern Chinese Literature 9 (1 9 9 4 ): 1 7 1 -9 0 ; G re g o ry B . L e e , Troubadours, Trum peters, Troubled Makers: Lyricism, Nationalism and Hybridity in China and Its Others (D u rh a m : D u k e U n iv e rsity P re ss, 1996): 93-127; Y u n te H u a n g , Transpaci=c Displacement: Ethnography, Translation, and Intertextual Travel in Tw entieth-Century Am erican Literature (B e rk e le y : U n iv e rsity o f C a lifo rn ia P re ss, 2 0 0 2 ): 1 6 4 -1 8 2 ; Stephen Owen, “Stepping Forward and Back: Issues and Possibilities for ‘World’ Poetry,” Modern Philology 1 0 0 .4 (M ay 2 0 0 3 ): 5 3 2 -5 4 8 .; a n d Lucas Klein, Foreign Echoes & Discerning the Soil: Dual Translation, Historiography, & World Literature in Chinese Poetry, P h .D . d isse rta tio n , Y a le U n iv e rsity, 2 0 1 0 (A n n A rb o r: UM I, 2010): 1-30.

59 New York: New Directions Books, 1990.

60 “Shijim o de huigu” 99.

61 Haun Saussy, “Postmodernism in China: a Sketch and Some Queries,” Cross-Cultural Readings of Chineseness: Narratives, Images, and Interpretations of the 1990s, e d . W e n -h sin Y e h (B e rk e le y, C a lifo rn ia : In stitu te o f E ast A sian Stu d ies, 2 0 0 0 ): 1 2 8 -1 5 8 , an d Great Walls of Discourse and Other Adventures in Cultural China (C a m b rid g e , M A : H a rv a rd U n iv e rsity A sia C e n te r, 2 0 0 1 ): 1 1 8 -1 4 5 .

62 Great Walls of Discourse 1 2 3 .

32 West as an “other” at unexpected times, for unexpected reasons, and the West so invoked is alw ays an im aginary, discursive construct. W hen Z heng M in sham es “C hinese cultural circles” for failing to value their “national treasures” as m uch as sinologists do, the feeling is sim ilar to w hen a Southern C hinese person sheepishly com plim ents m e on m y M andarin.

⌧e point is not that my Mandarin is actually better or worse; the point is that this individual feels insecure about his or her M andarin. Z heng M in’s senses of pride and sham e are certainly form ed w ith respect to the W est as a cultural other, but that other is im aginary.

Even without individual international sinologists to feel sham ed by, Zheng Min could still have reasonably regretted the lack of respect for tradition that she observed in her lifetime.

(⌧e sin o lo g ist sh e g o es o n to m en tio n , it d eserves to b e said , is n o t S tep h en O w en b u t

Ernest Fenollosa.) Zheng’s essay takes on a very di9erent cast when it is removed, tem p o rarily, fro m th e W o rld L iteratu re co n text. S au ssy arg u es, in th e in tellectu al co n text in which it participates,

the essay perform s precisely the w ork of classical deconstruction on the territory of m odern literature as studied in C hin a. It describes a logic of airtight opposition s, for exam ple, the polarization of past and present in modern literary history, and tries to discover ways of su b vertin g th e d istin ctio n s, as in th e claim th at lan gu age is alw ays an d n ecessarily an ‘in h e rita n c e’ fro m th e p a st.63

Even if we grant that culture-as-inheritance subverts the hard line between past and present,

Zhao’s characterization as “conservative” seems appropriate. At the same time, the contradictions that arise as Z heng sets wenyan a g a in st baihua a n d tra d itio n a g a in st modernity, even for the apparent purpose of deconstructing those oppositions,

63 Great Walls of Discourse 1 2 6 .

33 Michelle Yeh, responding to Zheng Min, persuasively deconstructs this distinction:

“N either in theory nor in practice does m odern C hinese poetry de$ne the vernacular exclusively as the spoken language in an attem pt, as Z heng claim s, to ‘replace both the sp o k en an d w ritten lan gu age’ w ith th e sp o k en .” 64 ⌧e v e ry e v id e n c e th a t Z h e n g c ite s to refu te H u S h i u n d erm in es th e d istin ctio n th at h er argu m en t d ep en d s o n : “if in d eed th ere are

‘n um erous “traces” of classical literature ... in the so-called vern acular poetry an d prose,’” asks

Yeh, “can one still claim that the vernacular has ‘toppled,’ ‘sm ashed,’ and ‘erased’ the classical trad itio n ?” 65 In o th e r w o rd s, w h y a tta c k H u S h i fo r c u ttin g tie s w ith tra d itio n o n th e o n e hand while simultaneously faulting him for failing to erase all traces of classical Chinese on th e o th er? T o u se an o th er d istin ctio n fro m th e $eld o f lin g u istics, th ere is a certain co n fu sio n in Z h e n g M in ’s a rtic le b e tw e e n d e sc rip tio n a n d p re sc rip tio n , fo r in sta n c e w h e n sh e quotes

Saussure to say that “W hat predom inates in all change is the persistence of the old substance; disregard for the past is only relative” 在變中舊的本質的不變是主要的，對過去的否定

只是相對的.66 Z h e n g a p p lie s S a u ssu re’s sta te m e n t o n th e re la tiv e im m u ta b ility o f lin g u istic sign s to th e vern acu lar literatu re m o vem en t o n th e o n e h an d to criticize w h at th e refo rm ers were trying to do (“You can’t do that”) and on the other hand to criticize what they did d o

(“Y o u sh o u ld n ’t d o th at”). Z h en g M in ’s article is an o th er m o vem en t in a n o w 1 2 5 -year e9o rt

64 “C hinese Postm odernism ” 110.

65 Ib id . 1 1 2 .

66 Quoted ibid. 112. ⌧e translation is from Wade Baskin, Course in General Linguistics (N e w Y o rk : ⌧e Philosophical Library, 1959): 74.

34 to cope w ith C hinese poetic m odernity by de$n in g its essen tial properties. B y w ishin g aw ay th e M ay F o u rth m o vem en t, sh e is attack in g th e M ay F o u rth d esire to w ish aw ay C h in ese tradition, and on very m uch the sam e grounds.

Over the last twenty-$ve years, the ongoing debates over modern Chinese poetry’s place vis-à-vis W orld Poetry and classical poetry have helped to place the $eld tem porally and sp atially, b y p ro b lem atizin g th e relatio n sh ip o f C h in ese vern acu lar N ew P o etry w ith its others. Both debates were inspired by the sam e insecurity about the success of New Poetry, and both have w orked to articulate a m odern C hinese poetic practice, how ever de$ned, against external others. H ow ever, as Z hang Longxi argues in his response to the W orld Poetry debate, “⌧e di9erence within C h in e se c u ltu re is la rg e ly ig n o re d so th a t th e re le v a n t di9erence between th e C h in e se a n d th e W e ste rn c a n b e h ig h lig h te d .” 67 ⌧e p o in t c o u ld b e extended w ith respect to tradition and m odernity: di9erences betw een the N ew Poetry and classical C hinese poetry are highlighted, but N ew Poetry has never been one tradition; from the beginning, there has been a w ide variety of styles and schools, each m aking di9eren t claim s about the place of poetry and the relationship of its form and content. My goal in turning to form as a keyw ord in the discussion of m odern C hinese poetry is to take a step tow ards the radical di9eren ces w ith in th e $eld o f p o etry th at p ro ceed ed fro m th e M ay F o u rth literary revolution, a revolution that upheld a certain understanding of language and meaning. I have characterized this view of language as an insistence on “transparency.” If it is possible to forge a “linguistic turn” in Chinese literary studies, whether or not it is an

67 Mighty Opposites 1 3 5 .

35 im ported W estern supplem ent, then it w ould serve as a counterbalance to the regim e of tran sp aren cy. T o retu rn to H en ry Z h ao , “p ayin g atten tion to fo rm m ean s d estro yin g th e work’s mystery and encouraging critical reading: a text which is viewed as an assemblage of words and signs cannot enjoy the glory of wholeness, nor can it possess the truthfulness that com es from ‘reIecting reality.’”

Yet di9erence is not solely a linguistic phenom enon; just as we have argued with resp ect to th e late Q in g p o etic revo lu tio n an d th e M ay F o u rth vern acu lar revo lu tio n , fo rm and history are m utually-encom passing phenom ena. Form s are never innocent, and a historically-inform ed form alism must consider the politics and polem ics of the linguistic structures that motivate poetry. Craig Dworkin invokes ‘pataphysics–the study of exceptions as opposed to generalizations–to return questions of form to the material reality of everyday existence:

A su6ciently radical formalism pursues the closest of close reading in the service of political questions, rather than to their exclusion. At the sam e time, it refuses to consider the poem as a realm separate from politics, even as it focuses on ‘the poem itself.’ It is a m atter, quite sim p ly, o f b ein g tru e to fo rm . A s a ‘patap h ysical in vestigatio n o f m in u te p articu lars, rad ical form alism s hew to the concrete. W here ‘concrete’ is w hat street is m ade of.68

⌧e structures of consciousness reproduced or subverted through formal manipulations are as serio u s an d real as th e p avem en t an d every b it as in vo lved in th e reality o f p o litics.

Strait Talk: Center and Margins

⌧e poets and critics discussed in the following chapters are all from Mainland China

68 Craig Dworkin, Reading the Illegible (E v a n sto n : N o rth w e ste rn U n iv e rsity P re ss, 2 0 0 3 ): 5 .

36 and Taiw an, arguably tw o “centers” of w hat w e m ight call “C hineseness”; they all w rite in so m e versio n o f th e stan d ard w ritten vern acu lar, fo r th e m o st p art free o f o b vio u s regio n al idiosyncrasies or traces of “m inor literature.” M any of them held or continue to hold in stitu tio n a l p o sitio n s, a t u n iv e rsitie s o r m a jo r p u b lic a tio n s, so m e tim e s e v e n in (o n e o r another) governm ent. M ost of them are w ell-know n, and their w orks are often collected in anthologies. Yet for all their m ainstream credentials, I intend to assert their w orks as exam ples of radical di9erence w ithin the tradition of C hinese N ew Literature, due to their approaches to poetic form and resistance to regim es of transparency. Is the return to ‘form ’ really a co ver fo r a retu rn to n atio n al literatu re? A m I co vertly reassertin g a d o m in an t discourse as against marginal, minor traditions–against the contemporary classical poets, for in sta n c e , o r a g a in st p o e ts fro m o v e rse a s C h in e se c o m m u n itie s in M a la y sia ?

Relying on a binaristic logic of center and margins necessarily involves a destructive red u ctio n o f th e cen ter, w h ich is n ever so u n ifo rm as it $rst seem s. A cen ter can easily b e sp lit into its ow n, internal center and m argins, w hile the purported m argins them selves m ay contain local centers; although it is necessary and productive to call attention to C hina’s periphery via the discourse of the sinophone, it is simultaneously crucial to rem em ber that

“C hina” itself is not so sim ple a question, and that the center contains a m ultitude of C hinas within it. To help illustrate this problem, I wish to put forward a poem by Taiwanese poet

Chen Li 陳黎 (b . 1 9 5 4 ), an im p o rtan t $g u re in T aiw an ese literatu re fo r h is u n u su al ab ility to co m b in e n ativist (bentu 本土) and M odernist, postm odernist, or avant-garde poetic

37 sensibilities–in other words, to be simultaneously local and international, a serious challenge to th e p resu p p o sitio n s o f th e W o rld P o etry d eb ate.69 C h e n ’s p o e try fre q u e n tly ta k e s th e fo rm of hom ages to writers, artists, and m usicians who have inspired him ; he de$nes his ow n canon. H e explains in the preface to his 1995 collection Islan d ’s E d ge 島嶼邊緣: “ I d o m y ow n thing, teaching, writing, looking at the things I like in the world: [O livier] M essiaen,

[L u ig i] N o n o , [K o b ayash i] Issa, H ig ash iyam a K aii, B o rg es, B arth es, S h i T ao , R ilk e, ...” 我做

我自己的事，教書，寫作，閱讀我喜歡的世界上的東西：梅湘，諾諾，一茶，東山

魁夷，波赫士，巴爾蒂斯，石濤，里爾克……70 Chen feels free to “do his own thing,” perhaps, because he imagines that he lives at what he considers to be the margins (in Hualien

花蓮, a sm a ll c ity w ith a la rg e a b o rig in a l p o p u la tio n o n T a iw a n ’s e a st c o a st), a n d y e t, h e is stro n gly co n scio u s o f th e co n n ectio n s b etw een th at m argin an d th e rest o f th e w o rld . A s sh e resp o n d s to th is essay o f C h en ’s, M ich elle Y eh recalls a co m m en t o f D avid W an g’s: “It’s getting crow ded on the m argins lately!” 最近邊緣特別擁擠.71 In d e e d , n e a rly e v e ry w h e re is on the m argin of so m eth in g ; c e n te rs a re e x tre m e ly fra g ile $c tio n s. P e rh a p s th is is w h a t C h e n

Li means when he says, “I live on an island’s edge, but I think that an island’s edge could also be the center of the world” 我居住在島嶼邊緣，但我覺得島嶼邊緣也可以是世界的中

69 See Michelle Yeh, “Bentu shixue de jianli–du Chen Li Daoyu bianyuan” 本土詩學的建立－－讀陳黎島 嶼邊緣, C h e n L i w e n x u e c a n k u 陳黎文學倉庫, w e b , 2 2 Ju ly 2 0 1 3 .

70 Chen Li, Daoyu bianyuan 島嶼邊緣 (Taipei: H uangguan, 1995): 203.

71 “B entu shixue.”

38 心72: re c o g n izin g o u rse lv e s to b e a lw a y s o n th e o u tsid e o f so m e c o n $g u ra tio n , w e fe e l fre e to belong to som ething larger.

In a p o em fro m Islan d ’s E d ge d a te d 1 9 9 5 , C h e n L i c o n sc io u sly re v ise s th e lin g u istic assum ptions of the M ay Fourth Era in light of the identity politics of the late 20 th c e n tu ry.

⌧e poem is called “Exercises for Not Curling the Tongue” 不捲舌運動; th e p h ra se “to n g u e - curling” ju a n sh e 捲舌 refers to th e p ro d u ctio n o f th e retro Iex series o f co n so n an ts w h ich appears in Standard M andarin and som e N orthern C hinese dialects, but not in m ost

Southern Chinese dialects.73 In p a rtic u la r, th e m a jo rity o f T a iw a n e se M a n d a rin sp e a k e rs d o not incorporate these sounds into their speech, so the presence or absence of this series of consonants serves as a crude and easy w ay to distinguish m ainlanders from Taiw anese. ⌧e poem begins by associating the “tongue-curling” retroIex consonants with form ality, in a u th e n tic ity, a n d n e e d le ss c o m p lic a tio n .

Don’t curl the tongue Don’t wear bowties Don’t speak a certain way to put on airs Don’t make things too complicated to show o9

An easy, self-assured movement Allows the tongue to become a simple creature Not a dawdling loitering serpent

⌧ose unaccustomed ornaments zh ch sh r Zhe huar, na huar74

72 Daoyu bianyuan 2 0 2 -3 .

73 ⌧ese consonants are written zh, ch , sh , a n d r in pinyin a n d ㄓ, ㄔ, ㄕ, a n d ㄖ in zhuyin fuhao.

74 Literally, “⌧is word, that word,” but with the rhotacized nom inalizing su6x -r 兒, a n o th e r c o m m o n feature of N orthern C hinese speech, added.

39 We don’t need that

不捲舌 不打領結 不裝腔作勢 不繁文縟節

輕便自在的行動 讓舌成為簡單的獸 躑躅踟躕的蛇不要

戴不慣的首飾ㄓㄔㄕㄖ 這話兒那話兒 可以不要75

What follows is a re-writing of a famous tongue-twister composed by Yuen Ren Chao (a.k.a.

Zhao Yuanren 趙元任, 1 8 9 2 -1 9 8 2 ), “ ⌧e H isto ry o f M r. S h i E a tin g L io n s” 施氏食獅史, which tells a story through the use of only characters pronounced sh i.76 ⌧e sto ry is m e a n t to illustrate historical changes in the C hinese language(s), as the disappearance of phonem ic distinctions causes wenyan, w ritte n m a in ly w ith m o n o sy lla b le s, to b e c o m e o v e rly a m b ig u o u s when read aloud. In “⌧e Problem of the Chinese Language,” Chao and Hu Shi argue for the

“refo rm of th e literary idiom ”:

Di9erences between the spoken and the written languages do, and ought to exist in all languages, but the tw o m ust not be separated by a chasm . A poem m ust be recitable, an oration m ust be deliverable, not to oneself, but to others. I wager that if a poem is read aloud to a h u n d red ed u cated p erso n s of the sam e dialect as the reader, u n le ss it is o n a h a c k n e y e d them e w ith hackneyed phrases, it w ill not be understood by m ore ears than one can count on his $ngers.77

75 Daoyu bianyuan 1 1 5 -6 .

76 Zhao Yuanren, Yuyan wenti 語言問題 [✏e Problem of Language] (Taipei: G uoli Taiw an daxue w enxueyuan, 1959): 143. A variation of the story appears in the much earlier (but similarly titled) “⌧e Problem of the Chinese Language,” co-authored in English with Suh Hu (Hu Shi), in ✏e Chinese Students’ Monthly 1 1 (1916) 579 and 593n. ⌧e earlier versio n is attrib u ted to M .T . H u (H u M in gd a 胡明達), C h ao’s frien d an d ro o m m ate. ✏e Problem of Language a lso in c lu d e s sto rie s w ritte n o n ly w ith th e sy lla b le yi a n d th e sy lla b le ji.

77 “⌧e Problem of the C hinese Language” 579.

40 Chen’s revised version uses Southern-accented Mandarin, where sh i ㄕ is m e rg e d w ith si ㄙ, making even more homophones available.

Try and read it: Mr. Shih liked poetry, he liked eating dead corpses, he had his ten attendants go to the m arket, to slow ly collect fourteen dead lions fo u r o f th e d ead lin es really lo o k ed lik e sto n e lio n s, ten o f th e d ead lio n s w ere w et as w et persim m ons, M r. Shih tore into a lion and ate noisily It w as a lio n , it w as a co rp se, it w as an ep ic p o em ...

唸唸看： 石氏嗜詩，嗜食死屍，使十侍 適市，施施拾十四死獅 四獅屍實似石獅，十獅屍濕 似濕柿，石氏撕獅嘶嘶食 是獅，是屍，是史詩……

Chen then follows his tongue-twister with the intended pronunciation, written in Mandarin

Phonetic Sym bols (zhuyin fuhao 注音符號), to clarify to th e read er th at all th e fo rty-eig h t characters of the passage should be pronounced the sam e w ay (si), w ith n o re tro Ie x consonants:

（ㄙ ˊ ㄙ ˋ ㄙ ˋ ㄙㄙ ˋ ㄙ ˊ ㄙ ˇㄙㄙ ˇㄙ ˊ ㄙ ˋ ㄙ ˋ ㄙ ˋ ㄙㄙㄙ ˊ ㄙ ˊ ㄙ ˋ ㄙ ˇㄙ ㄙ ˋ ㄙㄙㄙ ˊ ㄙ ˋ ㄙ ˊ ㄙㄙ ˊ ㄙㄙㄙ ㄙ ˋ ㄙㄙ ˋ ㄙ ˊ ㄙ ˋ ㄙㄙㄙㄙㄙ ˊ ㄙ ˋ ㄙㄙ ˋ ㄙㄙ ˋ ㄙ ˇㄙ……）

Where the need for a written supplement to make sense of a recited passage was, for Chao and Hu, an unacceptable situation, for Chen it is an opportunity to play–a confusing lack of distinctions m addening from the perspective of language as a tool of com m unication is a poet’s boon.

Chen concludes his poem with an even more pointed message of Taiwanese nativism:

41 ⌧ere are two kinds of lion corpses, $ne But for tongue-twisters, just like for epic poems, ⌧ere’s only one kind

Not constipated Not bloated Not contradicting history Not condemning no tongue-curling

For instance, say perm anently reside in Taiwan (ts’a n g -tsu T a iw a n ) For instance, say ✏e ✏ree Principles of the People unify China (T su n g -k u o )78

獅屍有兩種，好的 繞口令，一如好的史詩 只有一種

不便秘 不臃腫 不違背歷史 不排斥不捲舌

譬如說長（ㄘㄤ´）住（ㄗㄨ`）台灣 譬如說三民主（ㄗㄨ ˇ）義統一中（ㄗㄨㄥ）國

Chen’s poem highlights the intersections of political boundaries and linguistic boundaries. To

“p erm an en tly resid e in T aiw an” m ean s fo rgettin g on e’s m ain lan d origin s an d ad o p tin g a

Taiwanese identity that does not refer back to a “China” that is elsewhere–the margin cut loose from the center, if only sym bolically and only to a certain extent. C hen’s utopian pronouncem ent that the margins can also be the center of the world depends on such an act of subtle subversion: he does not com pose his poem in Taiwanese M innan 閩南 dialect, the language spoken natively by the m ajority of T aiw anese, nor in any of T aiw an’s m any aboriginal tongues, but m erely substitutes one set of phonem es for another to create a

78 Again, Chen Li uses phonetic sym bols to indicate that his desired pronunciation should not include retro Iex co n so n an ts; I h ave R o m an ized h is p rescrib ed p ro n u n ciatio n s u sin g th e W ad e-G iles system w h ich is com m on in Taiw an.

42 distinctly local version of the national language.

In th e en d , d o es it m atter if so m eo n e p ro n o u n ces C h in a Zhongguo o r Tsung-kuo?

Does it matter if a writer follows a group of two syllables with a group or three, or a group of th ree w ith a g ro u p o f tw o ? P h o n em es, lik e n u m b ers, d o n o t h ave in trin sic p o litical valen ces.

⌧e number two is not modern, any more than the number three is traditional; the retroIex fricativ e /ʂ/ is n o t in h eren tly to talitarian , an y m o re th an th e d en tal sib ilan t /s/ is in h eren tly liberal dem ocratic. N evertheless, the cultural practices that lead to group identity depend on such arbitrary di9eren ces, an d th e d istin ctn ess o f T aiw an ese id en tity versu s m ain lan d o ften com es dow n to dental sibilants instead of retroIex, W ade-G iles or M andarin Phonetic

Sym bols instead of Hanyu pinyin, traditional characters instead of simpli$ed–with similar reactio n s again st stan d ard m ain lan d lin gu istic fo rm s o ccu rrin g in H o n g K o n g. R ecen t developm ents in China’s relations with Hong Kong, Taiwan, and M acau, particularly under chief executives in Taiw an and H ong K ong w ho are perceived as friendlier to the People’s

Republic (Ma Ying-jeou 馬英九 and C .Y. Leung 梁振英, re sp e c tiv e ly ), h a v e o n ly in c re a se d the em phasis on local form s in response to nationally-im posed standards. C hen L i’s fo rm alism $nds the di9erence w ithin the standard, the m argin w ithin the center.

⌧e chapters of this dissertation, beginning with this introduction, represent $ve moments in the dialectic of form and content as it has played out in the history of modern

43 Chinese poetry. Each chapter carries, in addition to its title, a single-word as a heading to describe the various aspects of this dialectic. Chapter two, with the heading “obscurity,” exam ines the place in the m odern C hinese poetic tradition of menglong 朦朧—obscurity, di6culty, ambiguity, suggestion–terms that indicate the absence or evasiveness of meaning.

Sym bolist-inspired poet Li Jinfa 李金髮 (1 9 0 0 -1 9 7 6 ) w ill act as th e cen tral $g u re, as discussion of his works has always accom panied debates over obscurity, from the debate over literary M odernism in C hina in the 1930s to the sim ilar debate in Taiw an beginning in

1950s, and $nally back to the M ainland with M isty or Obscure poetry in the 1980s. ⌧e charge of obscurity is exam ined as a polem ical device, as a descriptive term for certain kinds of $gurative language, and as a dem and for alternative m odes of reading and interpretation.

Chapter three is example of the kind of alternative modes of reading available when th e u su al m o d es o f lin g u istic sig n i$cation are placed aside. U nder the heading “m usicality,” we explore the place of rhythm in the aesthetic theories of Zhu Guangqian 朱光潛 (1 8 9 6 -

1986), including his argum ents which make rhythm the basis for em pathy. In his analysis of poetry in the 1942 work Shi lun 詩論, Z h u tu rn s to w a rd a k in d o f re a d in g w e w ish to c a ll

“musical”–where all-or-nothing categories are rejected, and a work is to be treated as an organic whole with an in$nite num ber of pertinent relations. ⌧is direction leads Zhu to posit an identity of form and content, where meaning is neither prior nor anterior to the words that express it. In emphasizing the essential similarities among di9erent poetic practices, Zhu’s view of literary history forecloses the possibility or desirability of radical

44 change at the sam e tim e as it opens the door for gradual change and a C hinese m odernity based on salutary cultural contact and renovation.

Chapter four, setting out from the tired but perennially thorny problem of

“tran slatab ility,” p resses m o re $rm ly on th e issu es su rro u n d in g cu ltu ral co n tact b etw een poetic traditions, in particular the possibility or desirability of viewing poetic form as an essential feature of poetry w hich m ust be reproduced in a faithful translation. ⌧e idea that poetry cannot be translated, that its content is too intimately wedded to its form to perm it adequate faithfulness, denigrates the validity of the long and vibrant tradition of translated poetry in Chinese, as well as foreclosing the possibility of alternative, experimental form s of tran slatio n .

Chapter $ve, headed by “iconicity,” describes just such an experimental translation, by Taiwanese poet H sia Yü (Xia Yu 夏宇, b . 1 9 5 6 ), w h o se p o e try c o n tin u a lly tre a ts la n g u a g e less as w ords and m ore as im ages. H sia Yü’s avant-garde poetic techniques, especially her use of m irror-im age form s, cut-ups, and collages, destabilize conventional m odes of reading. H er recen t b o o k o f exp erim en tal p o etry tran slatio n s d ep lo ys th ese tech n iq u es again st th e ubiquitous digitalization of media–an avant-garde practice which is nostalgic for the past.

With Hsia Yü, we approach an understanding of language so hostile to signi$cation that it su ggests tru ly terrifyin g p o ssib ilities. H sia Y ü ’s rejectio n o f lin gu istic tran sp aren cy an d nostalgic avant-gardism point to the close of the era when written text had a physical, material existence, and so she represents a $tting close to the dissertation.

45 ⌧ese assorted case studies cannot address the totality of the Chinese New Poetry trad itio n , b u t th ey d o su g g est an ap p ro ach to th at trad itio n w h ich m ay o p en u p n ew aven u es fo r d iscu ssio n . ⌧ey represen t an e9ort to brin g ou t th e laten t “lin gu istic tu rn” in a historically-grounded way. In a sense, they com prise a history of form , but a history whose form itself is n ot closed; th ey are a collection of particulars assem bled to suggest a m yriad of potential interconnections, rather than a single, monolithic narrative.

46 Chapter 2 Obscurity

Menglong: A M o d e rn H isto ry

A 1980 article by Zhang Ming 章明, e n title d “ In fu ria tin g O b sc u rity ” 令人氣悶的

朦朧, $rm ly $x e d th e p la c e o f th e te rm menglong 朦朧, “o b sc u rity,” in th e o n g o in g discussion about modern and M odernist Chinese poetry.1 In th a t a rtic le , Z h a n g o b je c ts to the obscure, di6cult poetry he sees in contem porary journals and proposes the existence of what he calls a menglong ti 朦朧體, th a t is, Menglong-ist p o etry. ⌧is characterization w ould stick , an d it b ecam e th e p ro p er d esign atio n o f th e gen eratio n o f p o ets w h o grew u p d u rin g the C ultural R evolution and began publishing in underground journals (notably Today,

Jin tia n 今天) in th e late 1 9 7 0 s an d early 1 9 8 0 s; th is g ro u p is co m m o n ly k n o w n as th e

Menglong shipai 朦朧詩派, o r in E n g lish th e M isty o r O b sc u re p o e ts. A t th e tim e Z h a n g

Ming (whose name literally means “obvious and bright,” the opposite of obscure) chose the word, it was not yet a proper name, but merely an apt characterization drawn from a large inventory of w ords to describe di6c u lt w ritin g .2 S u rp risin g ly, th e $rst p o e t to w h o m Z h a n g

1 Zhang Ming 章明, “ L in g re n q im e n d e m e n g lo n g ,” Menglong shi lunzheng ji, e d . Y a o Jia h u a 姚家華 (B eijin g: X u eyu an ch u b an sh e, 1 9 8 9 ) 2 8 -3 4 .

2 We will discuss a selection of this vocabulary and its implications below.

47 applied the description menglong w a s a c tu a lly b o rn tw o g e n e ra tio n s b e fo re th e M e n g lo n g

Poets: Du Yunxie 杜運燮 (1918-2002), w ho w as m ost active in the 1940s and w ho w ould be canonized as part of the Nine Leaves Group 九葉派 in 1 9 8 1 . ⌧e Menglong-ist p o em sin gled o u t b y Z h an g fo r th e m o st th o ro u gh an alysis is D u ’s “A u tu m n ” 秋, $rst p u b lish e d in

1980 in Shi kan 詩刊:

Even the pigeon-whistles send out mature tunes: It’s p ast, th e su m m er th at th e rain rio ted . You’ll never again recall that strict, stiIing trial, ⌧at trivial reminiscence during dangerous swimming.

Having experienced the spring sprouts’ ground-breaking, ⌧e twists and hurts of young leaves’ growing-up, ⌧ese branches have gone mad beneath blazing sun, Nearly lost direction in the rainy night.

Now, the easy sky has no Ioating clouds, Mountain streams are clear, and the view is exceptionally broad; In th e seaso n w h en w isd o m an d a9ectio n m atu red , ⌧e riverwater also seemed to rise from a deeper source.

Tangled air currents ferment, In th e m o u n tain valleys th ey b rew in to tran sp aren t sp irits; How many autumns have they blown here? ⌧e drunkard’s fragrance Has already stained autumn buds autumn leaves.

Street-lining trees im ply som ething in red, Bicycle wheels Iash morning air; A crane’s long arm points far o9 into the sky, Above, the autum n sun glances over news of the harvest.

連鴿哨也發出成熟的音調， 過去了，那陣雨喧鬧的夏季。 不再想那嚴峻的悶熱的考驗， 危險游泳中的細節回憶。

48 經歷過春天萌芽的破土， 幼葉成長中的扭曲和受傷， 這些枝條在烈日下也狂熱過， 差點在雨夜中迷失方向。

現在，平易的天空沒有浮雲， 山川明淨，視野格外寬遠； 智慧、感情都成熟的季節呵， 河水也象是來自更深處的源泉。

紊亂的氣流經過發酵， 在山谷裡釀成透明的好酒； 吹來的是第幾陣秋意？醉人的香味 已把秋花秋葉深深染透。

街樹也用紅顏色暗示點什麼， 自行車的車輪閃射著朝氣； 吊車的長臂在高空指向遠方， 秋陽在上面掃描豐收的信息。3

On one level, the poem’s meaning proceeds from its title: autumn and all of the associations that follow from the passage of time–old age, maturity, rest–control most of the imagery.

⌧e poem also gestures towards a more speci$c allegorical meaning; in particular, “the street- lining trees im ply som ething in red,” plays w ith the clearly-de$ned sym bolism of the

Cultural Revolution era, as does the “blazing sun,” symbolizing Mao Zedong, which drives the branches “m ad.” ⌧e ten years of chaos and violence have “tw isted and hurt” the young, vulnerable leaves; the passing of sum m er and its storm s im plies not only aging in a general sen se, b u t th e lo ss o f in n o cen ce.

3 Zhang Ming 29.

49 Zhang’s response to the poem takes this historical context and its symbolism as a startin g p o in t:

⌧is poem, when you $rst read it once or twice, is very hard to $gure out. I was worried that th is w as d u e to m y o w n in ep tn ess, so I ask ed a co m rad e w h o o ften w rites p o etry to in stru ct me. He read it and also shook his head, saying he didn’t understand. ⌧e two of us studied it together for an hour or so before it seem ed like w e could guess that w hat the author had in mind (we don’t know if we guessed right) is to compare the Cultural Revolution’s ten years of chaos to “the sum m er that spell of rain rioted,” and [to say that] now , everything is as still and cool as autum n. If w e guessed right, then the inspiration and outline of this poem are very good, but in term s of its m ethod of expression, why does it have to be so arcane and di6cult? ⌧e $rst line, “Even the pigeon-whistles send out mature tunes,” is di6cult to grasp. A young rooster just beginning to crow m ight send out im m ature tunes, so an adult ro o ster’s call w o u ld b e m atu re. B u t as a p igeo n -w h istle is an in stru m en t to m ak e n o ise, it’s hard to see how its tune could be mature or imm ature. To use “easy” to describe the sky is very unusual. “Tangled air currents ferment”–I don’t know if saying that air currents ferm ent m eans that the air currents sw ell, but then w hat w ould it m ean to say that sw ollen air currents brew into “transparent spirits”? “A bove, the autum n sun glances over new s of the harvest”–news isn’t a material thing, so how can it be glanced over? ... “Having experienced the spring sprouts’ ground-breaking, / ⌧e tw ists and hurts of young leaves’ grow ing-up”– lines like these are aw kw ard to read, they don’t seem like C hinese. It seem s like the author $rst wrote them out in a foreign language and then translated them into Chinese.

這首詩初看一兩遍是很難理解的。我擔心問題出在自己的低能，於是向一位經常寫 詩的同志請教，他讀了也搖頭說不懂。我們兩個經過一個來小時的共同研究，這才 仿佛地猜到作者的用意（而且不知猜得對不對）是把文化革命的十年動亂比作“陣 雨喧鬧的夏季”，而現在，一切都象秋天一樣的明淨爽朗了。如果我們猜得不錯， 這首詩的立意和構思都是很好的；但是在表現手法上又何必寫得這樣深奥難懂呢？ “連鴿哨也發出成熟的音調”，開頭一句就叫人捉摸不透。初打鳴的小公雞可能發 出不成熟的音調，大公雞的聲調就成熟了。可鴿哨是一種發聲的器具，它的音調很 難有什麼成熟與不成熟之分。天空用“平易”來形容，是很希奇的。“紊亂的氣流經 過發酵”，說氣流發酵，不知道是不是用以比喻氣流膨脹，但膨脹的氣流釀出“透 明的好酒”又是什麼意思呢？“秋陽在上面掃描豐收的信息”，信息不是一種物質 實體，它能被掃描出來呀?再說，既然是用酷暑來比喻十年動亂，那為什麼第二節 又扯到春天，使讀者產生思想紊亂呢?經歷春天萌芽的破土，幼葉成長中的扭曲和 受傷”，這樣的句子讀來也覺得彆扭，不象是中國話，仿佛作者是先用外文寫出來， 然後再把它譯成漢語似的.4

4 Zhang Ming 30.

50 Zhang makes several accusations towards Du’s poem: it is “hard to $gure out” 很難理解的, one “doesn’t understand” it 不懂, it’s “a rc a n e a n d d i6c u lt” 深奧難懂, a n d “d i6c u lt to grasp” 叫人捉摸不透. Z h a n g ’s $n a l c o m p la in t, th a t th e p o e m se e m s tra n sla te d , rin g s perhaps most loudly. Again and again over the history of modern Chinese poetry, critics have made similar comments, not merely observing the (often quite salient) inIuence of Western poetry on Chinese poets, but going so far as to say that modern Chinese poetry seem s to have been written in a foreign language and then translated into Chinese.5 O n th e o n e h a n d , so m e o f D u ’s sen ten ces d o exh ib it w h at is o ften called “E u ro p ean ized syn tax” Ouhua yufa 歐

化語法—for instance, characterized by particularly long modifying clauses–but Zhang seem s to b e su ggestin g so m eth in g else: n am ely, D u ’s lan gu age is u n fam iliar, so p erh ap s it is because of foreign inIuence.

Let us attend to the gram m atical constructions that Zhang and his collaborator pick out as aw kw ard. “H aving experienced the spring sprouts’ ground-breaking,/ ⌧e twists and hurts of young leaves’ grow ing-up”: these two lines com prise one long verb phrase (which I have translated as a participle modifying “these branches”), with the verb “experienced” jin gli guo 經歷過 taking three nom inalized verbs for objects, nam ely potu 破土 (literally ‘b reak ground’), niuqu 扭曲 (‘b en d an d tw ist’), an d sh o u sh a n g 受傷 (‘b e in ju red ’). (“G ro w in g -u p ”

5 Another famous example, from the other shore of the Taiwan Strait, predates Zhang Ming by almost a decade: Guan Jiem ing 關傑明, “ Z h o n g g u o x ia n d a i sh ire n d e k u n jin g ” 中國現代詩人的困境, Zhonghua xiandai wenxue daxi: Taiw an 1970-1989 中華現代文學大系：台灣 1970－1989, ed. Yu Guangzhong 余 光中 (T aip ei: Jiu ge ch u b an sh e, 1 9 8 9 ), 2 .8 8 2 -8 8 5 . W e w ill retu rn to th e d eb ates over M o d ern ism in T aiw an below, and to the question of modern Chinese poetry as “already translated” in chapter four.

51 ch en gzh an g 成長, p a rt o f a m o d ify in g p h ra se , is y e t a n o th e r n o m in a lize d v e rb .) ⌧e d i6c u lty of the line owes in no small measure to the di9ering agents of these verbs–where “break ground” and “grow up” have the plant as im plied agent, “bend and tw ist” and “be injured” im ply a passive construction w hose agent is unspoken and unknow n. It is very probable that

Zhang would have considered the lines less awkward if the verb “experienced” were removed entirely, and the three nom inalized verbs allow ed to stand on their ow n: “⌧e spring sprouts break ground,/ ⌧e young leaves are twisted and hurt as they grow up.” ⌧e result is undeniably more “C hinese,” in the sense that it recalls the structure of classical Chinese poetry, but what else has changed? For one thing, parallelism has been introduced, gram m atically if not prosodically, and the reader is forced to consider these tw o statem ents in relatio n to each o th er, eith er fo r th eir sim ilarity o r th eir co n trast. F o r in stan ce, w e co u ld see the hopefulness of birth contrasted w ith the pain of grow ing up. D u’s version is m ore com plicated, and its signi$cance is derived from the use of the verb “experienced” in such a way that ground-breaking, twisting, and being-hurt can all serve as the objects of experience.

⌧e failed parallelism of experience’s objects creates the awkwardness of the lines, which su ggests th e to rtu red p ath o f th e b ran ch es’ lives, an exp ressio n o f th e am b ivalen ce o f D u ’s autum n, the am bivalence of experience, along w ith the “m ature” pigeon w histles and ferm ented air currents. B ut then again, Z hang says he does not understand either of those metaphorical images either.

It is D u ’s $g u rative lan g u ag e th at creates th e m o st tro u b le fo r Z h an g . A n actu al

52 ro o ster’s calls co u ld b e m atu re o r im m atu re syn ecd o ch ically, h e ad m its, b u t Z h an g stead fastly refu ses to ap p ly th e term to th e so u n d p ro d u ced b y an in an im ate o b ject. S im ilarly, so m eo n e’s personality can be pingyi 平易, “e a sy g o in g ,” b u t th e sk y c a n n o t. ⌧e a ir c a n n o t fe rm e n t o r tu rn in to alco h o l. T o th ese o b jectio n s, B ian Z h ilin 卞之琳 would respond in defense of the allegedly menglong p o e ts b y sa y in g , “ If th is c a n se rv e a s th e b a sis fo r ju d g m e n t, th e n

Chairman Mao’s famous line, ‘She [the plum] smiles in the grove,’ is incomparably absurd”

如果這個論據足以成立，那麼毛主席的名句‘她〔梅〕在叢中笑’就荒謬絕倫.6

Zhang’s complaints do seem rather naive; surely he is not incapable of understanding

$gurative language? One way to approach Zhang’s mis-reading (or failure to read) the poem com es from W illiam Em pson, w hose $rst type of am biguity is “the com parison of tw o things which does not say in virtue of what they are to be compared.”7 (⌧e C h in e se tra n sla tio n o f

Seven Types of Am biguity u se s menglong to tra n sla te “a m b ig u ity,” su g g e stin g th a t w h a t E m p so n and Z hang M ing are talking about m ay not be so distant.) ⌧at is, am biguity is produced in cases w here the tenor and vehicle of a m etaphor could be related in various w ays. Paul de

Man, reading Empson, proposes that,

instead of setting up an adequation betw een tw o experiences, and thereby $x in g th e m in d o n the repose of an established equation, [m etaphor] deploys the initial experience into an in $nity of associated experiences that spring from it. In the m anner of a vibration spreading in in $nitude from its center, m etaphor is endow ed w ith the capacity to situate the experience at the heart of a universe that it generates. It provides the ground rather than the fram e, a

6 Bian Zhilin 卞之琳, “ Jin ri x in sh i m ia n lin d e y ish u w e n ti” 今日新詩面臨的藝術問題, Menglong shi lu n z h en g ji 朦朧詩論爭集, e d . Y a o Jia h u a 姚家華 (B eijin g: X u eyu an ch u b an sh e, 1 9 8 9 ): 1 3 5 .

7 William Empson, S ev en T yp es o f A m b ig u ity (L o n d o n : C h atto an d W in d u s, 1 9 7 7 ): 2 1 .

53 lim itless an teriority that perm its the lim itin g of a speci$c e n tity.8

In o th er w o rd s, am b igu ity m igh t n o t b e a sp ecial case o f m etap h o r; lack o f d e$n ite m ean in g might be a constitutive property of poetic language. “Far from referring back to an object th at w o u ld b e its cau se, th e p o etic sig n sets in m o tio n an im ag in g activity th at refers to n o object in particular. ⌧e ‘meaning’ of the m etaphor is that it does not ‘mean’ in any de$nite manner.”9 If w e ta k e Z h a n g a t h is w o rd , h e sin c e re ly d o e s n o t u n d e rsta n d th e im p lic a tio n s o f

“tangled air currents ferment”–and who is to say that we do? In fact, Zhang Ming is not alone; m ore often than not, a critic objecting to obscurity or di6culty w ill ask question alm ost exactly like Z hang’s, “H ow can a pigeon w histle be m ature?” H ow can one speak of branches “experiencing” a plant’s “ground-breaking” and “being twisted and hurt” in the sam e b reath ? Z h an g’s rh eto rical m an eu vers are easily exp lain ed , b u t th e q u estio n s h is attack raises are far m o re d i6cu lt to an sw er.

Obscurity is not a new problem in Chinese poetry, but it is a central problem of the last hundred years, not to m ention a constant barrier to the acceptance of N ew Poetry by read ers. ⌧o u gh m an y o f th e critics w e w ill m en tio n co n sid er o b scu rity a failu re o f th e p o et or of the particular poem to com m unicate to the reader, we consider the reader him or herself as integral to the production of meaning and therefore the only available–though not authoritative–judge of a text’s clarity or obscurity. ⌧us our study relies heavily on such data

8 Paul de M an, “⌧e Dead End of Form alist Criticism ,” Blindness and Insight: Essays in the Rhetoric of Contemporary Criticism, 2 n d e d ., re v ise d (L o n d o n : M e th u e n , 1 9 8 3 ): 2 3 5 .

9 Ib id .

54 pertaining to reader com prehension as we have: merely a collection of essays like Zhang

Ming’s–which may or may not form a coherent discourse, which may or may not represent attem pts to analyze their objects in any detail, and w hose authors m ay or m ay not be arguing in good faith–and a few, generally more lucid defenses and apologies by critics sympathetic to M o d ern ism in literatu re. N everth eless, fo r u s to in sist th at th ese read ers really do o r cou ld understand would be just as disingenuous as it is for them to insist that no one could understand; therefore, just as we did with Zhang M ing, we will do our best to take our critics at their w ord. O ur discussion w ill proceed by $rst recounting and analyzing the critical recep tio n o f L i Jin fa 李金髮 (a.k .a. G in 9a Lee, 1900-1976), w hose nam e becam e a byw ord for obscurity throughout the tw entieth century, from the 1920s through the 1980s and on both sides of the Taiwan Strait. In addition to exam ining the aspects of Li’s Sym bolist- inspired poetic craft that m ay relate to his purported menglong-n ess, w e w ill co n sid er th e polem ical strategy of labeling a poet or other writer menglong. ⌧e se c o n d h a lf o f th e c h a p te r will turn to defenses of poetic obscurity, especially the writings of Zhu Ziqing 朱自清

(1898-1948), along w ith approaches to creating m eaning out of di6cult poem s by poets su ch as B ian Z h ilin .

First, som e notes on term inology. ⌧e critical vocabulary includes a variety of di9erent words and phrases to describe di6cult writing. Som e are merely negations of understanding, such as nandong 難懂, nanjie 難解, a n d feijie 費解, a ll o f w h ic h m e a n

55 “d i6cu lt to un d erstan d ,” an d kanbudong 看不懂, bum ing 不明, o r butong 不通 which mean

“can n o t be un d ersto o d .” O th er term s are th em selves h igh ly m etap h o rical. M o re im p re ssio n istic a lly, th e re a re menglong 朦朧, huanghu 恍惚, mohu 模糊, a n d aim ei 曖昧, a ll of which m ean, roughly, ‘indistinct.’ In the discussion of literary obscurity in the twentieth century, huise 晦澀 and menglong a re th e tw o m o st im p o rta n t o f th e se te rm s; w e w ill tran slate b o th as “o b scu re,” th o u g h th eir ety m o lo g ies su g g est slig h tly d i9eren t im p licatio n s.

⌧e Hanyu da cidian d e $n e s huise a s, “o f w ritin g e tc ., h id d e n a n d o b sc u re , n o t sm o o th , n o t easy to understand” 謂文辭等隱晦，不流暢，不易懂.10 ⌧e c h a ra c te r hui o rig in a lly re fe rs to the evening darkness, w hile se is th e o p p o site o f sm o o th , a p p e a lin g to a ta c tile o r g u sta to ry metaphor: in combination se can m ean ‘rough’ (as in cu se 粗澀), ‘stilted o f sp eech’ (se’n e 澀

訥), ‘un rip e’ (sh en gse 生澀), o r ‘b itter’ (kuse 苦澀). Written di9erently, as 晦塞 (th is se meaning ‘stopped up,’ overlapping with the other character), the word appears in Liu Xie’s 劉

勰 chapter of the Wenxin dialong 文心雕龍 on “⌧e H idden and the Evident” 隱秀. L iu de$nes the quality yin 隱, w h ic h m e a n s h id d e n , a s “a fu rth e r m e a n in g b e y o n d th e w o rd s” 文

外重旨者; “ it is b e st e m p lo y e d in c re a tin g m u ltip le la y e rs o f se n se” 隱以複意為工.11 Huise is yin g o n e to o fa r: “ S o m e p e o p le m ista k e o b sc u rity fo r d e p th . A lth o u g h it is m y ste rio u s [lik e depth], it is not yin ” 或有晦塞為深，雖奧非隱.12 P e i Z iy e 裴子野 (4 6 9 -5 3 0 ) m ak es a

10 Hanyu da cidian 漢語大辭典 (Shanghai: H anyu da cidian chubanshe, 2001): 5.739.

11 Liu Xie 劉勰, Wenxin diaolong zhu 文心雕龍註 (H ong K ong: Shangw u yinshuguan, 1960): 2.632.

12 Ib id . 2 .6 3 3 .

56 sim ilar d istin ctio n b etw een yin a n d d e p th in h is Discussion of Carving Insects 雕蟲論, criticizing poetry that is “crafted but inessential, hidden but not profound” 巧而不要，隱

而不深.13 Menglong, o n th e o th e r h a n d , o rig in a lly m e a n s ‘d im ’ o r ‘in d istin c t’; in its m o st com m on w ritten form , both characters em ploy the m oon radical. It often describes the moonlight, for instance in Pan Yue’s 潘岳 (2 4 7 -3 0 0 ) Fu on Autum n’s Arrival 秋興賦, “ ⌧e moon is menglong-ily b rig h t” 月朦朧以含光兮, o r in T a n g D y n a sty ci-p o et X u C h an g tu ’s 徐

昌圖 (I. 1 0 th c e n tu ry ) “ L in jia n g x ia n ” 臨江仙, “ W h e re is th e p a in te d b o a t to n ig h t? / ⌧e tid e is stead y, an d th e m o o n lig h t o ver th e H u ai R iver is menglong” 今夜畫船何處？潮平淮

月朦朧. It c a n a lso b e w ritte n w ith th e su n ra d ic a l (曚曨) o r th e eye rad ical (矇矓); its earliest uses all pertain to light and vision. C onsistent w ith the m etaphorical system that relates th e m ean in g o f w ritin g o r sp eak in g to so m eth in g w h ich can b e view ed an d id en ti$ed more or less clearly, menglong’s extended m eanings relate to confusion and di6c u lt y com prehending (cf. mingliao 明瞭, qingchu 清楚, mingbai 明白, mingque 明確, hutu 糊塗, etc.).

Neither huise n o r menglong h a s e v e r h a d p a rtic u la rly p o sitiv e a sso c ia tio n s a tta c h e d , but we have seen how Liu Xie merely places huise a t th e u n d e sira b ly fa r e n d o f a sp e c tru m th at also in clu d es th e p o sitive q u ality yin . If it is p o ssib le to g e n e ra lize , c la ssic a l C h in e se poetry often places an em phasis on suggestion, hanxu 含蓄, ra th e r th a n e x p lic it e x p re ssio n ;

13 Yu Yuan 郁沅 and Z hang M inggao 張明高, e d s., Wei Jin Nanbeichao wenlun xuan 魏晉南北朝文論選 (B eijing: R enm in w enxue chubanshe, 1996): 325.

57 hence “m eaning beyond the words” yan w ai zhi yi 言外之意 is c o n sid e re d a v irtu e . ⌧is is not to say, however, that modern readers regard much classical poetry as “di6cult,” due to th e lo n g h isto ry o f co n textu alizatio n an d exp licatio n th at h as g ro w n u p aro u n d th e m o st com m only read poets. W hen critic R en W eiqing w rites in 1980 against the “menglong ten d en cy” in m o d ern C h in ese p o etry, h e in sists th at th e b est p o ets w ere n ever menglong, a n d he lists Du Fu, Bai Juyi, and Qu Yuan as exam ples.14 C e rta in ly ta k in g B a i Ju y i a s a n e x a m p le of clarity in poetic expression will m eet with little disagreem ent (and the political im plications of choosing a poet w ho w rote about com m on folk and their su9e rin g is c le a r), but when even Qu Yuan seem s to readers to be perfectly intelligible, one suspects the critical tradition has sim ply grow n over-con$d en t in its in terp retatio n s. ⌧us m odern critics w ho advocate transparency are never at a loss for classical m odels; for negative exam ples, they habitually refer to the sm all group of poets about whose work the tradition is willing to admit defeat–Li Shangyin 李商隱 (8 1 3 -8 5 8 ), W u W en yin g 吳文英 (c. 1 2 0 7 -1 2 6 9 ), an d a few o th ers.

Li Jinfa, Father of the Menglong Symbolist School

Our discussion of obscurity, of the menglong, in m o d e rn C h in e se p o e try b e g a n in

1980, a crucial mom ent in literary history, when a generation of new poets reacting radically against the lim itations placed on artistic expression during the C ultural R evolution w ere

14 Ren Weiqing 任維清, “ T a n sh ig e d e ‘m e n g lo n g q in g x ia n g ’” 談詩歌的‘朦朧傾向’, Shandong wenxue 山 東文學 1980.12 (D ec. 1980): 7 2 .

58 reach in g a w id er au d ien ce, at th e sam e tim e as o ld er p o ets lik e D u Y u n xie an d B ian Z h ilin were returning to publishing after decades of silence. However, the discussion surrounding obscurity in New Poetry had begun as early as the 1920s, prom pted by a poet whose nam e would be raised again and again through the decades: Li Jinfa. For poetry critics on both sid es o f th e T aiw an S trait, L i Jin fa h as lo n g served as a cau tio n ary exam p le. F o r in stan ce, as the debate over w hat w e now call M isty or M englong poetry raged in the M ainland in the early 1980s, Li’s poetic oeuvre underw ent critical reappraisal. H ere is one representative passage, from an article by Du Xuezhong, M u Huaiying, and Qiu W enzhi reassessing Li’s su ccesses an d failu res:

In co m p reh en sib le, trivial en igm as su ch as th is o n e co m p rise a large p ro p o rtio n o f th is p erio d of Li Jinfa’s poetry. W ithout a doubt, this kind of work has lost art’s social function and aesthetic signi$cance, and as a result it could never be acknow ledged by the m asses of its tim e. U nfortunately, this is an im portant reason w hy L i Jinfa’s poetry has gone unread, has been all but forgotten by the world, for so long. ⌧is is a tragedy which the extrem ely talen ted L i co u ld n ever h ave p red icted , an d it is a h isto rical lesso n th at sh o u ld b e rem em b ered b y o b scu re p o ets w h o m istak e u n fath o m ab ility fo r ab ility.

象這樣不知所云的‘笨謎’，在李金髮這一時期的詩歌中占有很大比重。這樣的作 品無疑會失去藝術的社會功能和審美意義，因而也不會被時代和群眾所承認。李金 髮的詩歌長期湮沒塵封，幾被世人忘卻，恐怕這是一個重要原因。這是頗有才華的 李金髮所逆料不到的悲劇，也是現今某些以‘莫測高深’為能事的朦朧詩人所應記 取的歷史教訓.15

Typically, Li himself is not the real subject of the discussion, but rather those “obscure poets who mistake unfathomability for ability.” Interest and debate in Li Jinfa routinely Iared up each tim e di6cult, M odernist- or Sym bolist-inspired poets or schools gained currency, startin g fro m th e p o p u larity o f D ai W an gsh u 戴望舒 (1 9 0 5 -1 9 5 0 ) an d th e jo u rn al Les

15 Du Xuezhong 杜學忠 et al., “L un Li Jinfa de shige chuan gzuo” 論李金髮的詩歌創作, Zhongguo xiandai wenxue yanjiu congkan 中國現代文學研究叢刊 1983.10 (O ct. 1983): 5 5 .

59 con tem porain s (Xiandai 現代) in the 1930s, continuing through the debate over M odernism in Taiw an beginning in the late 1950s, and once again w ith the advent of properly Menglong poetry after the Cultural Revolution. Any discussion of obscurity in modern Chinese New

Poetry must begin with Li Jinfa.

Li appeared on the Chinese literary scene in the mid-1920s, while he was studying scu lp tu re in F ran ce an d G erm an y, after h e sen t h is m an u scrip ts u n so licited to Z h o u Z u o ren

周作人 (1885-1967). A ccording to L i’s recollections, Z hou pronounced that they w ere

“so m eth in g n o t to be fo u n d do m estically” 國內所無 and arranged for them to be published.16 F ro m 1 9 2 5 to 1 9 2 7 , L i p u b lish e d th re e v o lu m e s o f p o e try o f 2 6 2 , 2 9 6 , a n d 2 3 5 pages, respectively: Drizzle 微雨 (B eixin , 1 9 2 5 ), Singing for H appiness 為幸福而歌

(S h an g w u , 1 9 2 6 ), an d ✏e Dinner Guest and the Famine Year 食客與凶年 (B eixin , 1 9 2 7 ).

He would go on to publish some more collections of prose and poetry; edit China’s foremost

(th o u g h sh o rt-lived ) $ne arts m agazine, Mei yu 美育; w o rk in a rts e d u c a tio n a lo n g sid e C a i

Yuanpei 蔡元培 (1 8 6 8 -1 9 4 0 ); tak e u p d ip lo m atic p o sts in Iran an d Iraq in th e 1 9 4 0 s; an d eventually retire to the U nited States, w here he operated a poultry farm in Lakew ood, N ew

Jersey. H e d ied in L o n g Islan d C ity, N ew Y o rk , in 1 9 7 6 . In h is retirem en t, h e w o u ld rem in isce, “In th e th irties, I really d id m ak e so m e w aves in C h in a’s feeb le literary scen e. A few people called m e the ‘eccentric of poetry,’ and som e people recognized m e as the founder of the Chinese Sym bolist school” 我在三十年代，確曾在貧弱的中國文壇，翻起一些

16 Li Jinfa, Y ig u o q in g d ia o 異國情調 (H ong K ong: Shangw u yinshuguan, 1946): 34.

60 波浪，有些人稱我為詩怪，有一部份人公認我為中國象徵派的創始者.17 ⌧e o ld e r L i is m ore than w illing to defer to his detractors, either out of m odesty or w ith the bene$t o f hindsight:

A certain Ms. Su Xuelin wrote an article analyzing my poetry; she explained the ins and outs of m y philosophy m ore clearly than I could m yself. In truth, m y poetry was just a word gam e fo r a m an in h is y o u th . ⌧ere w as no philosophy to speak of. Som e of it w as just adolescent fan tasy, its craft w as stupid an d clum sy; n ow I $n d it em barrassin g to read. C ertain ly it doesn’t belong in the august halls of literary history.

一位蘇雪林女士，還寫了一篇分析我詩的文章，說我的思想的來龍去脈，比我自己 還明瞭。實在我的詩，是弱冠之年的一種文字遊戲，談不上什麼思想，有些還是幼 稚的幻想，笨拙的技術，如今自己看了還覺得難以為情，那裡能登文學史大雅之堂 呢.18

Nevertheless, Li does have a particular place in those august halls, not just as one of the $rst

Chinese writers to be inIuenced by French Symbolism (Liang Zongdai 梁宗岱 was roughly contem poraneous), but also as the $rst m ajor detour from the original principles of N ew

Literature set out by Hu Shi. W here Hu had advocated transparency, clarity, easy com prehension, and strictly vernacular language, Li w rote strange, suggestive verse in an id io sy n c ra tic m ix o f sp o k e n id io m a n d c la ssic a l la n g u a g e .19 ⌧o u g h L i h a d n o p e rso n a l connections at all to the “feeble” C hinese literary scene before he took the initiative to contact Z hou Z uoren, he adm its that he w as w riting in response to the folksy doggerel of the

17 Li Jinfa, “W enyi shenghuo de huiyi” 文藝生活的回憶, Piaoling xianbi 飄零閒筆 (T aip ei: Q iao lian chubanshe, 1964): 1 .

18 Ib id .

19 Li’s background as a Hakka from Meixian, Guangdong, may have contributed both to his linguistic idiosyncrasies and his perpetual treatm ent as a cultural “other”; see H ayes G reenw ood M oore, Trans=xing Form s: ✏e Culture of Chinese Poetry and Poetics in M odern Chinese Literary History, P h .D . d isse rta tio n , Columbia University, 2009 (Ann Arbor: UM I, 2009): 128-136.

61 early baihua poets; though he enjoyed Bing Xin’s 冰心 (1 9 0 0 -1 9 9 9 ) p o etry, h e says, h e w as unimpressed with Kang Baiqing 康白情 (1 8 9 6 -1 9 5 9 ) an d H u S h i. (H e m isq u o tes K an g’s

“G rass” 草兒 to read , “⌧e g rass is in fro n t, / ⌧e o x is b eh in d ” 草兒在前，牛兒在後20 and cites H u’s couplet, “⌧e buttered bread is really fresh, / Local tea, free of charge!” 牛油麵

包頗新鮮，家鄉茶葉不費錢, a s e x a m p le s o f th e k in d o f p o e try h e fo u n d u n in sp irin g .)21

Later on, while the literary scene was becom ing increasingly politicized, he asserted the value of individual expression: “W hen I write poem s, I never worry about whether people will understand. I only seek to express the poetry in my bosom . ... I can’t hope that everyone would understand it” 我作詩的時候，從沒有預備怕人家難懂，只求發泄盡胸中的詩

意就是⋯⋯我不能希望人人能了解.22 S u c h a sta te m e n t c le a rly le ft L i o p e n to c h a rg e s o f unhealthy individualism or solipsism , which rem ained part of the o6cial evaluation of his work up until the 1980s, when critics like Sun Yushi 孫玉石 and Z hou Liangpei 周良沛 were able to extract certain redeeming values: a patriotic homesickness in the Europe- educated youth, nam ely a realist im pulse to depict the lives of ordinary people in Europe and to critiq u e th e so cial in eq u alities th ere. In T aiw an , L i’s leg acy w as reco vered so o n er, esp ecially by “surrealist” poet Yaxian 瘂弦 (b . 1 9 3 2 ), w h o w ro te ab o u t L i an d in terview ed h im fo r

20 ⌧e second line should read, “⌧e whip is behind” 鞭兒在後.

21 “W enyi shenghuo de huiyi” 5.

22 Li Jinfa, “Shi geren linggan de jilubiao” 是個人靈感的記錄表, Zhongguo xiandai shilun 中國現代詩論, ed. Yan g K uan ghan 楊匡漢 and Liu Fuchun 劉福春 (G uangzhou: H uacheng chubanshe, 1985): 1.250.

62 Epoch Poetry 創世紀 in th e 1 9 7 0 s.23

⌧us Li’s place in literary history is a lonely one, with very few allies. Although he is alm ost alw ays described as the “founder” of the C hinese Sym bolist school, Li’s direct in Iuence on subsequent C hinese Sym bolists is predom inantly negative. ⌧e p o e t a sso c ia te d with Chinese Symbolism who generally receives the most positive evaluations, Dai Wangshu, actually bears little resem blance to Li in term s of the density of im agery or of linguistic contortions, and in fact D ai is often labeled a “M odernist” as distinct from “Sym bolist.” D u

Heng 杜衡 writes in the preface to Dai’s second poetry collection that Dai “thinks it is utterly impossible to $nd any of the excellent merits of Sym bolist poetry in all the Chinese

Sym bolist poets of that tim e. ⌧erefore he him self tries to avoid the sam e abuses when he writes”;24 “th e C h in e se S y m b o list p o e ts o f th a t tim e” d e $n ite ly in c lu d e s L i. A i Q in g 艾青 wrote of Li in 1980, “Many of his poems were written overseas, and they seem like a foreigner w rote them . B ut he loved to use wenyan to w rite h is fre e v e rse p o e try, to th e p o in t th at it is h ard er to u n d erstan d th an an cien t C h in ese p o em s” 他的很多詩是在外國寫的，

也好像是外國人寫的；但他卻愛用文言寫自由體的詩，甚至比中國古詩更難懂.25

Bian Zhilin, whose poetry has perhaps more in com m on with Li’s, and who (as we have seen)

23 Yaxian 瘂弦, “Zhongguo Xiangzhengzhuyi de xianqu–shiguai Li Jinfa” 中國象徵主義的先驅－－「詩 怪」李 金髮, Chuangshiji 創世紀 33 (Ju n . 1 9 7 3 ); L i Jin fa , “ D a Y a x ia n x ia n sh e n g e rsh i w e n ” 答瘂弦先生二 十問, Chuangshiji 39 創世紀 (Jan . 19 7 5 ): 3-1 0 .

24 Quoted in Tu Kuo-ch’ing, “⌧e Introduction of French Symbolism into Modern Chinese and Japanese Poetry,” Tam kang Review X .3 -4 (S p rin g /S u m m e r 1 9 8 0 ): 3 5 9 .

25 Ai Qing 艾青, “ Z h o n g g u o x in sh i liu sh i n ia n ” 中國新詩六十年, Wenyi yanjiu 文藝研究 1980.5 (M ay 1980).

63 defended other poets against charges of obscurity, is even more extrem e in distancing himself fro m C h in a’s $rst Sym bolist, as he w rites in E n glish retrospectively on the subject of W estern in Iuence on m odern C hinese poetry:

To illustrate Dai Wangshu’s success, it would be useful to contrast it with the utter failure of Li Jinfa. Li Jinfa’s $rst collection of poem s appeared in 1925, the sam e year as Xu Zhimo’s $rst collection. It was indeed Li Jinfa who $rst introduced French sym bolist poetry into China. Yet, perhaps to the surprise of some Western scholars and critics, I cannot help asserting candidly that his e9orts w ere w orse than fruitless and their inIuence on C hina’s “N ew Poetry” during a certain period w as pernicious. It is not that he lacked any poetic talen t an d h ad n o t so m eh o w cau g h t th e aro m a o f th e S ym b o list p o etry o f th e late Nineteenth Century. ⌧e fact is that his far from adequate knowledge of French and his no less inadequate m astery of his m other tongue, both in Baihua (th e v e rn a c u la r) a n d Wenyan (th e literary lan gu age), d id gro ss in ju stice to th e F ren ch S ym b o lists. H is “tran slatio n ” [sic] from them and his “im itations” of them m ysti$ed th e C h in ese read in g p u b lic as w ell as h is follow ers so that so-called sym bolist poetry w as considered just a jum ble of incom prehensible dazzling words devoid of meaning or logic. ... W e had to wait for Dai W angshu and a few others to dispel the m ysterious clouds over such French Sym bolists in their pioneering work and their ow n creative practice, and to know how to w rite poetry som ew hat in the French way.26

Such disavow als by subsequent im portant Sym bolist-inspired poets leave Li rather isolated in th e trad itio n . Y et, b ased o n w h at little w ritin g ab o u t p o etry h e left, id io sy n crasy seem s to have been an important part of Li’s poetic practice. Huang Candao 黃參島, o n e L i’s g re a te st early adm irers, coined Li’s nicknam e, the ‘eccentric of poetry’ sh igu a i 詩怪,27 w h ic h is still in currency. A n unIattering label w hen applied by m ost of Li’s critics, it nonetheless suggests a sin gu larity o n th e p o etic scen e in so m e m in o r w ay co m p arab le to th e ‘sage o f p o etry’ sh ish en g

詩聖 (D u F u ), o r at least th e ‘dem o n o f p o etry’ sh igu i 詩鬼 (L i H e). Y et sin g u larity is clo sely

26 Bian Zhilin, “⌧e Developm ent of China's ‘New Poetry’ and the InIuence from the West,” in CLEAR 4 .1 (Jan ., 19 8 2 ): 15 4 .

27 Since guai’s m eanings can range from “anom aly” to “oddball” to “m onster,” “eccentric” is a relatively neutral tran slatio n o f th e w o rd .

64 related to in co m p reh en sib ility; as th e C h in ese sayin g go es, a lo fty tu n e h as few to h arm o n ize

(qugao hegua 曲高和寡). H e c o u ld n ’t e x p e c t e v e ry o n e to u n d e rsta n d it, a n d v e ry fe w d id .

⌧e charges of obscurity leveled against his poetry are the most constant feature of Li

Jin fa criticism , to th e p o in t o f clich é. ⌧e term s “L i Jin fa,” “S ym b o lism ,” an d vario u s w o rd s im p ly in g o b sc u rity b e c a m e so in te rtw in e d in th e d isc o u rse su rro u n d in g m o d e rn C h in e se poetry that one scarcely needed to mention one before the others would surely follow ; for instance, in 1959, decades after the fact, erstw hile N ew Poet and then chairm an of the

Chinese Writer’s Association Guo Moruo 郭沫若 (1892-1978) looked back in an o9- handed and disingenuous way on Chinese New Poetry up to that point:

New Poetry since May Fourth has included all di9erent kinds of New Poetry, like the ‘C rescent School,’ the ‘Sym bolist School,’ this school or that school. I can’t even keep them straigh t. I d o n’t k n o w w h at sch o o l p o em s lik e L i Jin fa’s b elo n ged to , b u t th ey w ere to tally im possible to understand, just like H u Feng’s essays.

五四以來的新詩有各種各樣的新詩，什麼新月派、象征派，這個派那個派 的，我也弄不大清楚。像李金髮的詩不知道算什麼派，實在叫人不懂 ，跟胡風的文章一樣.28

In o th er w o rd s, b y th e m id d le o f th e cen tu ry, ‘L i Jin fa’ h ad b eco m e a b yw o rd fo r literatu re th at w as d i6cu lt, d ecad en t, w illfu lly ab stru se: th e o p p o site n o t o n ly o f H u S h i’s p rin cip les for vern acular literature, but also of M ao Z edon g’s prin ciples for proletarian literature. X ie

Caijiang 謝采江, w ritin g in 1 9 2 8 u n d e r th e a ssu m e d n a m e C a o c h u a n W e iy u 草川未雨 in

28 Guo Moruo, “Dangqian shige zhong de zhuyao wenti” 當前詩歌中的主要問題, Renm in ribao 人民日報 1959.02.13. Needless to say, Guo knew very well what school Li Jinfa’s poem s belonged to, though he may not have wished to adm it more than a passing fam iliarity with such politically questionable literature.

65 his Yesterday and Today on the Chinese New Poetry Scene 中國新詩壇的昨日和今日,29 re c a lls th e in itial reactio n to L i Jin fa.

After Li Jinfa’s Drizzle c a m e o u t [in 1 9 2 5 ], h a rd ly a n y o n e n o tic e d , a n d n o o n e ta lk e d a b o u t it. I rem em ber the year before last (1926) som eone w rote a rem ark that w asn’t particularly dam aging in a little journal put out by the Creation Society, that he was annoyed the minute he saw the characters “Jinfa” [golden hair]. In the past year, publishing activity has suddenly increased and plenty of new journals have appeared. People have started m entioning L i’s poetry, but no matter whether they approve of and adm ire him or not, they all say they can’t understand his poetry, that his poem s are hard to interpret, or that his collections are pretty bizarre.

李金髮的『微雨』出版後沒有人注意，也不曾有人提到過。記得是前年（一九二七 年）罷，在創造社一份小刊物上有一段說過關於『金髮』的無關痛癢的話，說是看見 『金髮』二字，便覺得討厭。只是近一年，出版事業勃興，新出的刊物真不少，有人 提到李詩來，但是無論贊成他的欽佩他的，或不贊成或不欽佩他的，都說他的詩難 懂，都知道他的詩是難索解的，或有人說他的詩集子中間是比較怪僻的30

Xie’s evaluation seems fairly accurate; according to Li Jinfa’s early critics, both pro and con,

“⌧e fact that Li’s poetry is hard to understand is recognized by everyone” 李先生的詩的不

大好懂，是被大家公認的了 (Z h o n g Jin g w en );31 “ E v e ry b o d y k n o w s L i Jin fa’s p o e m s a re in sc ru ta b le” 誰都知道李金髮的詩是很難索解的 (Z h ao Jin g sh en );32 “ N o t a sin g le o n e o f

Li’s poem s can be understood in its entirety” 李金髮的詩沒有一首可以完全教人了解 (S u

29 Zhang Daming 張大明, Zhongguo xianzhengzhuyi bainian shi 中國象徵主義百年史 (K aifen g: H en an daxue chubanshe, 2007).

30 Caochuan Weiyu 草川未雨, Zhongguo xinshitan de zuori he jinri 中國新詩壇的昨日和今日 (B eip in g: Haiyin shuju, 1929), quoted in Li Liming 李立明, “ X ia n g zh e n g p a i sh ire n L i Jin fa” 象徵派詩人李金髮 in Wentan 文壇 316 (July 1971): 33-34.

31 Zhong Jinwen 鍾敬文, “ L i Jin fa d i sh i” 李金髮底詩, Yiban 一般 1.12 (15 Dec., 1926): 6 1 7 .

32 Zhao Jingshen 趙景深, “ L i Jin fa d e Weiyu” 李金髮的微雨, Xin wenxue guoyan lu 新文學過眼錄 (G u ilin : Guangxi shifan daxue chubanshe, 2004): 139.

66 Xuelin);33 “ E v e ry o n e w h o ’s re a d h is p o e m s, e v e n p e o p le w ith v e ry g o o d lite ra ry c u ltiv a tio n , has no idea what he’s saying, and not know ing what [the poet] is saying is the distinguishing feature of so-called Sym bolism ” 凡是讀過他的詩的人，縱有很好的文學素養的，也不

知道他所說的是什麼，而唯其不知道他所說的是什麼，這正是所謂「象徵派」的特色

(L u o M u h u a).34 H u a n g C a n d a o , L i’s m o st a d m irin g e a rly re a d e r, p u t a m o re p o sitiv e sp in o n th e m atter: “L i’s p o em s are Iu id , m u ltifario u s, m u tab le, m y stical, in g en io u s. ⌧ey are n o t like ordinary poem s w hich can be understood at once” 李先生的詩，是流動的，多元的，

變易的，神祕化，天才化的，不是如普通的詩，可以一日了然的.35

⌧ough we do not wish to assume an air of superiority towards readers who $nd Li

Jin fa’s p o etry d i6cu lt o r o b scu re, w e can still lo cate so m e p o ten tial so u rces o f co n fu sio n th at might have put these readers o9. First, in a sense, critics who accuse Li of obscurity are actually taking his own word for it–because when critics characterize his poetry as menglong, th ey are u sin g o n e o f h is favo rite d escrip tive w o rd s. ⌧at is to say, L i d o es n o t m erely withhold information, creating an atmosphere of vagueness; rather, one of the hallmarks of

Li’s poetry is that the reader is almost constantly told or rem inded about what the poet is withholding. Descriptions may feature something which we are told we cannot make out, and speech is constantly too quiet or con$dential to include us. In this sense, Li is perhaps

33 Su Xuelin 蘇雪林, “ L u n L i Jin fa d e sh i” 論李金髮的詩, Xiandai 現代 3.3 (M ar. 1933): 3 4 8 .

34 Luo Muhua 羅慕華, “ T a n Z h o n g g u o X ia n g zh e n g p a i sh i” 談中國象徵派詩, Beiping chenbao 1 9 Ju ly 1 9 3 4 , n.p.

35 Huang Candao 黃參島, “ Weiyu ji q i zu o zh e” 微雨及其作者, Meiyu 美育 2 (1928): 211.

67 deliberately abstruse (“I can’t expect everyone to understand it”), or at least deliberately eschew ing clear exposition. Li’s “O n a Train in Lyon” 里昂車中 in c lu d e s a c la ssic e x a m p le o f

Li’s brand of poetic description:

Faint lam plight shines bleakly on everything, Turning her pink forearm gray-white. Her soft hat’s shadow covers her face, It is lik e th e m o o n d isap p earin g b eh in d clo u d s!

ReIections of the hazy world, In a m o m en t w h ich can n o t b e arrested , Have left us far behind, We give them no thought.

⌧e weariness of the valley, only the remaining moonlight And the waving of the branches Can grant it sleep. ⌧e pale green of the grassy ground reIects on the cuckoo’s wings; ⌧e clatter of the car’s wheels tears through all the still, Lights from the distant city shine on the mouth of the little window, ⌧ey are powerless to reveal the sleeper’s small cheek Nor the worry deep in her heart.

Ah, heartless night, You have folded up m y wings. ⌧e sound of the stream, ⌧e drifting of the clouds, Will they ever make my golden hair fade?

In an unknow n, far-o9 p lace, ⌧e moon shines like a palace roof, striving upward. Ten thousand people laugh for joy, Ten thousand people cry for sorrow, Hiding together–the indistinct shadows What is fresh blood, What is $reIies?

細弱的燈光淒清地照遍一切， 使其粉紅的小臂，變成灰白。 軟帽的影兒，遮住她們的臉孔， 如同月在雲裡消失！

68 朦朧的世界之影， 在不可勾留的片刻中， 遠離了我們 毫不思索。

山谷的疲乏惟有月的餘光， 和長條之搖曳， 使其深睡。 草地的淺綠，照耀在杜鵑的羽上； 車輪的鬧聲，撕碎一切沈寂； 遠市的燈光閃耀在小窗之口， 惟無力顯露倦睡人的小頰， 和深沈在心之底的煩悶。

啊，無情之夜氣， 蜷伏了我的羽翼。 細流之鳴聲， 與行雲之漂泊， 長使我的金髮褪色麼？

在不認識的遠處， 月兒似鉤心鬥角的遍照， 萬人歡笑， 萬人悲哭， 同躲在一具兒，——模糊的黑影 辨不出是鮮血， 是流螢！36

⌧e poem revolves around several light sources which illuminate or fail to illuminate the scen e in sid e an d o u tsid e th e car. ⌧e $rst stan za p resen ts th e m o st co m p licated p lay o f ligh t and shadow , w here the lam plight (w hich, if it is the sam e as the lam plight in line 14, is com ing from the distant city outside the train) m anages to shine “everyw here,” despite being

“faint.” Yet th e lam p ligh t high ligh ts th e w om an accom p an ying th e sp eaker by erasu re: her pink arm fades to gray, and the shadow s cast on her face by her hat “disappear like the moon behind clouds.” Rather than revealing her face, the lam plight erases the contrast of light and sh ad o w th at h ad , w e im agin e, d elin eated h er fo rm in to d im , gray, in d istin ctn ess. L i’s sim ile,

36 Li Jinfa 李金髮, Li Jinfa shiji 李金髮詩集 (C hengdu: Sichuan w enyi chubanshe, 1987): 19.

69 “like the m oon behind the clouds,” is especially fortuitous, as it describes precisely the etym ology of the w ord menglong (se e a b o v e ), w h ic h , it h a p p e n s, is th e $rst w o rd o f th e v e ry next line, follow ing the stanza break. W hat Li accom plishes in this scene is to hide through illum ination, or to reveal through obscuring. L i’s descriptions show us their scene, but only in a d im , in d istin c t w a y, a n d w ith a stro n g se n se o f w h a t is re m a in in g h id d e n ; in a v e ry concrete sense, Li’s poetry is menglong. ⌧e a m b ig u ity o f th e u sa g e o f th is w o rd in th e n e x t stanza–is “the hazy [menglong] w o rld ” in h eren tly menglong, o r is it menglong b e c a u se it h a s

“left us,” because we “give [it] no thought”?–develops the technique further, describing the world in order to fail to describe it, mentioning it in order to fail to think of it. By the end of th e p o em , th e $n al lig h t so u rce ($reIies) cannot be distinguished from the evidence of a terrible calam ity (fresh blood).

In an o th er m o ve to in fo rm th e read er o f w h at h e fails to in fo rm th em , L i is also fo n d of them atizing spoken com m unication, but m ostly as som ething intim ate and exclusive. Li

Jin fa p refaces h is th ird co llectio n , Singing for H appiness, w ith a n a m u sin g a p o lo g y, w h ic h nonetheless provides som e insight into his poetics:

⌧is collection is mostly love poems and an individual’s depressive ramblings. Maybe a lot of read ers w ill feel im p atien t w ith th e “⌧o u th o u I I” o f th e lo ve p o em s, b u t p erh ap s th is k in d of public discussion of m atters of the heart can help repair the apathy between the sexes in China. As for the individual’s depressive ramblings, I hope the reader will permit me.

這集多半是情詩，及個人牢騷之言。情詩的“卿卿我我”或有許多閱者看得不耐煩， 但這種公開的談心，或能補救中國人兩性間的冷淡；至於個人的牢騷，諒閱者必許 我以權利的.37

Ju st as L i’s m o d e o f d escrip tio n is to m ak e th e read er aw are o f w h at h e refu ses to sh o w h im o r 37 “B ian yan” 弁言, Li Jinfa shiji 4 3 9 .

70 her, Li’s approach to verbal com m unication is just as much about calling the reader’s attention to a m essage or utterance w hich he or she is speci$cally excluded from understanding. As a result, words like diyu 低語 ‘lo w ta lk ,’ siyu 私語 ‘con$dential talk,’ and eryu 耳語 ‘sp eak in g q u ietly in to so m eo n e’s ear’ ap p ear freq u en tly in L i’s p o etry; th in gs are constantly being said into som eone or other’s ear, such that w e are unable to know w hat has been said. A typical exam ple is “In the Corner” 牆角裡, w h ic h d e sc rib e s a p a ir o f lo v e rs whose forms and sounds merge in a moment of (partial) privacy.

In th e co rn er, Tw o form s, Merging, Hands with sleeves, Feet with knees, Murmuring, Murmuring, Is it Speech Or laughter?

––Do you still remember When you told me you only loved me a little? ––⌧e times have changed ––We’re the unfortunates Of the world, ––You could say that. ⌧eir voices grow quieter, Murmuring, Only the night can understand.

牆角裡， 兩個形體， 混合着： 手兒聯袂， 腳兒促膝。 喁喁地， 喁喁地， 分不出

71 談說 抑是微笑。

––你還記得否， 說僅愛我一點？ ––時候不同了， ––我們是 人間不幸者， ––也可以說啊。 聲音更小了， 喁喁地， 惟夜色能懂了。38

What is worthy of note in the poem is that while on the one hand the possibility of com prehension is ruled out (“O nly the night can understand”), the poet cannot resist giving us at least a snatch of dialogue to interpret, to show us exactly what we are not privy to.

Mostly it conforms to our expectations regarding ill-fated lovers (“the unfortunates of the world” suggests that they will have to part again soon), but by alluding to a changing context, the content of w hich w e are speci$cally not told (“⌧e tim es have changed”), the poem allow s us to understand in general term s while rem inding us we are not allow ed to understand speci$cally. ⌧e $rst stanza, it deserves to be said, could be com pared to “O n a

Train in Lyon” as it em ploys exactly the sam e technique executed with visual information rath er th an verb al in fo rm atio n . In b o th cases, a sen se o f in tim acy is created : tw o sh ad o w y form s seem ingly m erge as they engage in a private m om ent together; tw o m urm uring voices red u ce in vo lu m e as th eir sp eak ers m o ve clo ser u n til th ey are in d istin gu ish ab le fro m in articulate laugh ter. ⌧e scen e is there for us to look upon , after a fashion , but w e are n ot in v ite d to jo in in .

38 Li Jinfa shiji 4 8 1 -2 .

72 On the other hand, just as the di6culty in Du Yunxie’s “Autumn” was tied to his use of m etaphor, his extension of words’ m eanings, Li Jinfa has baXed critics with his unfam iliar com parisons. Scholar and novelist Z hao Jingshen reacts, in a fairly detailed analysis, to Li’s

“M isfortune” 不幸 in alm ost the exact w ay Z hang M ing reacted to “A utum n.” “M isfortune” read s:

We’ve snapped our souls’ Iowers, So we weep in the darkened room . ⌧e sunlight cannot dry our tears From beyond the hills, it only blow s away ⌧e early morning mist. Ah, I’m so timid. Where are the nighttime doves singing? Bring your lyre here I’ll tell it all my misfortune, So it can announce it wherever it goes.

We have such clumsy language for our negotiations, But only your lyre can tell in detail A soul’s collapse,––clear springtime understands. We know of nothing greater than truth, Together we open our hands, black night is whispering to us! ⌧e nighttime doves are here I’m afraid we’ll have Causeless sorrow because of this.

我們折了靈魂的花， 所以痛哭在暗室裡。 嶺外的陽光不能曬乾 我們的眼淚，惟把清晨的薄霧 吹散了。啊，我真羞怯，夜鳩在那裡唱， 把你的琴來我將全盤之不幸訴給他， 使他遊行時到處宣佈。

我們有愚笨的語言使用在交涉上， 但一個靈魂的崩敗，惟有你的琴 能細訴，——晴春能了解。 除了真理，我們不識更大的事物， 一齊開張我們的手，黑夜正私語了！ 夜鳩來了我恐我們因之得到 無端之哀戚。39

Li’s som ewhat erratic punctuation is reIected in the translation. We should recognize by now

39 Li Jinfa shiji 1 9 5 .

73 some of Li’s favorite concerns–to the “clumsy language” and the con$dential “whispering” of the night, we can add the am bivalent pow er of expression provided by m usic. Both this poem and Li’s more frequently referenced “Sorrow of the Qin” 琴的哀 are fre e re w ritin g s o f th e scen ario o f R u an Ji’s 阮籍 (2 1 0 -2 6 3 ) fam o u s $rst “S in g in g M y F eelin g s” p o em , in w h ich the speaker is troubled at n ight by sadn ess, leadin g him to arise an d play the qin zith e r.40 L i incorporates aspects of R uan’s scene (the w ind, the birds) into his m etaphorical universe; in

“M isfortune” the w ind fails to blow aw ay his tears, and in “Sorrow of the Qin” it responds to his song, disrupting it. “M isfortune” com plicates matters even more, merging the nighttime doves and the qin: it is th e d o v e s’ so n g w h ic h is, a p p a re n tly, th e qin w h ic h th e sp e a k e r w ish e s would convey his misfortunes. ⌧e degree to which these two overlapping images are meant to rem ain sep arate is h ig h ly u n clear, an d th is is th e p o in t at w h ich Z h ao rep o rts co n fu sio n .

Zhao singles out one couplet as particularly di6cult, explaining the di6culty as a question of pronoun and antecedent. He places what he believes to be the antecedents of the third- person pronoun ta in p a re n th e se s.

Bring your qin h e re I’ll te ll it (qin) all o f m y m isfo rtu n e, May it (qin) announce it everyw here w hen it roam s.

40 Li’s “Sorrow of the Qin” reads: 微雨濺濕簾幕，/正是濺濕我的心。/不相干的風，/踱過窗而作響，/ 把我的琴聲，/也震得不成音了！//奏到最高音的時候，/似乎預示人生的美滿。/露不出日光的天 空，/白雲正搖蕩着，/我的期望將太陽般露出來。//我有一切的憂愁，/無端的恐怖，/她們並不能 了解啊。/我若走到原野上時，/琴聲定是中止，或柔弱地繼續着.

⌧e drizzles spatters on my curtain–/It is spattered on my heart./An irrelevant wind/Noisily striding across the window/Startles my qin’s tones/A ll out of tune!//W hen it reaches the highest pitch,/It seem s to foretell of life’s satisfaction ./A sky that w ill n ot reveal the sun ,/W hite clouds driftin g,/M y hopes w ill burst out like the su n .//I h ave every so rro w ,/C au seless terro r,/⌧ey can ’t u n d erstan d ./W h en I w alk o u t to th e p lain ,/⌧e qin’s so n g w ill sto p m id w ay, o r else so ftly co n tin u e. Li jinfa shiji 1 0 -1 1 .

74 把你的琴來我將全盤之不幸訴給他（琴）， 使他（琴）游行時到處宣布.41

⌧e ni (y o u ) m u st re fe r to th e qin p la y e r, a n d th e ta (h e /sh e /it) m u st re fe r to th e qin itse lf.

But this is unacceptable, because a qin c a n n o t “ro a m ,” w h ic h m a k e s h im fe e l th a t p e rh a p s ta sh o u ld also refer to th e p layer. B u t th en sh o u ld n ’t th e p ro n o u n s b e th e sam e? Z h ao p ro p o ses th e fo llo w in g revisio n (o r w h at h e calls yi 譯, ‘tra n sla tio n ’ o r ‘in te rp re ta tio n ’):

Bring your qin h e re I’ll te ll it a ll o f m y m isfo rtu n e , so w h e n y o u ro a m it c a n a n n o u n c e it everyw here.

把你的琴來我將全盤之不幸訴給他，在你游行時好使他到處宣布.42

⌧e pronoun change completely removes an instance of personi$cation, one of Li’s favorite poetic tropes. In its place, Zhao substitutes a more fully elaborated metaphor of the qin, where the instrument now has also a player, who, as a human, is able to “roam.” Yet Li’s original lacks the $gure of a qin player–the qin is m e re ly a $g u re fo r th e d o v e s’ m u sic a l voices, m eaning that when we interpret the verb ‘roam ,’ we m ust consider that the doves might be the implied subject. ⌧en do doves roam? ⌧e meaning of the verb will be stretched no matter how we interpret the line.

⌧is kind of $gurative imprecision accounts for a large part of what critics consider di6cult in Li’s poetry. For instance, Li’s signature piece “A Feeling” 有感 piles $gurative im ages together in such a w ay as to m ake precise interpretation nearly im possible.

Like fallen leaves splashing

41 Zhao 139-142.

42 Ib id .

75 blood on our feet,

Life is a sm ile on the lips of death.

Beneath the half-dead moon, drinking and singing, th ro at-ren d in g n o tes Float away on the north wind. Ah! Go o9 consoling your beloved.

Open your window Make her bashful Dust from the road covers her Adorable eyes. Is th is life’s bashfulness and indignation? Like fallen leaves splashing blood on our feet,

Life is a sm ile on the lips of death.

如殘葉濺 血在我們 腳上，

生命便是 死神脣邊 的笑。

半死的月下， 載飲載歌， 裂喉的音 隨北風飄散。 吁！ 撫慰你所愛的去。

76 開你戶牖 使其羞怯， 征塵蒙其 可愛之眼了。 此是生命 之羞怯 與憤怒麼？ 如殘葉濺 血在我們 腳上。

生命便是 死神脣邊 的笑.43

Li liked the com pound simile-metaphor of the $rst six lines, “Life is a smile on the lips of death,” enough to use it both to open and close the poem .44 B o th h a lv e s o f th e sim ile c o n ta in a further m etaphor: in the $rst three lines, autum n leaves are com pared to blood splashed on our feet, and in the next three lines, life is (need we repeat it?) a sm ile on the lips of death.

Actually attempting to read the two halves of the simile together yields confusing results: the leaves signify death against our shoes, w hich have been w alking on life’s journey (see ll. 15-

19); they cling as a rem inder of inevitable death. (Autum n foliage is another favorite topic of

Li’s.) Yet the second half of the simile is reversed, as it is the smile of life that features on death’s face–a Ieeting expression that seems to indicate something it does not divulge.

While life is a momentary escape from death, death is a constant presence in life. ⌧is split point of view, a simile that operates from two di9erent timefram es and perspectives, suggests

43 Li Jinfa shiji 5 3 5 -6 .

44 ⌧is kind of “circular form” has been popular throughout the history of New Poetry; see Michelle Yeh, Modern Chinese Poetry: ✏eory and Practice since 1917 (N ew H aven : Y ale U n iversity P ress, 1 9 9 1 ): 1 0 0 -1 0 1 .

77 a m ore nuanced view of life and death than som e critics have been w illing to grant. Is life a

Iash of mirth in the midst of tragedy? Or a di6cult journey after which death is a welcom e resp ite? ⌧e u n d ecid ab ility o f in terp retatio n creates th e co m p lexity o f th e p o em .

The Polemics of Obscurity

Claiming not to understand something is never a neutral statement, least of all during politically heightened times characterized by an insistence on linguistic transparency.

In h is d efen se o f menglong p o e ts a g a in st Z h a n g M in g ’s o rig in a l a tta c k , B ia n Z h ilin o b se rv e d the pow er behind the charge of obscurity:

After many years of interruption and even atrophy, these past two years ... a few new poems “n o t in u n ifo rm ” gu sh ed fo rth an d w restled aw ay a co rn er of jou rn al sp ace. A t on ce m an y poets and critics of stature denounced them in unison. ⌧e only reason for their opposition was that [the poems were] “hard to understand.” For a long time in this country, the words “hard to understand” have exerted great pressure on a poet, so one shouldn’t use them indiscrim inately just because they happen to be handy.

新詩經過多年的停滯以至退化，近兩年⋯⋯也湧現了一些並非‘穿了制服’的新詩， 爭取到刊物上一角的位置。於是不少有地位的詩人和批評家馬上齊聲非議。反對的唯 一理由是‘難懂’。長久以來，在國內，‘難懂’二字，對於一位詩人壓力很大， 所以不要因為易用而隨便濫用.45

Here we can begin to unpack the polemical weight of such an accusation; to take for granted th e in tellig ib ility o f a p iece o f w ritin g is to tak e fo r g ran ted th e au d ien ce w h ich m ig h t encounter it–in e9ect to erase the audience from the equation and substitute oneself and one’s ow n response. Post-1949, this m ove is always m ade with explicit or im plicit reference to the m asses, w ho, it is assum ed, have neither the patience nor the interest (nor, one could

45 “Jinri xinshi m ianlin de yishu w enti” 1 3 4 -5 .

78 cynically conclude, the education nor the intelligence) to understand or appreciate di6cult poetry. Such a totalitarian mode of reading com es as no surprise during the M ao era, but even during the R epublican period, readership is scarcely taken into consideration. It is not tru e, p erh ap s, th at everyon e $n d s L i’s p o e try d i6c u lt, o r c o n sid e rs th a t d i6c u lty to b e th e end of the story (w e w ill explore som e exceptions below ), but the critics w ho do $nd it di6cult never fail to insist that everyon e m u st $n d it d i6c u lt. It is a c h a ra c te ristic o f c ritic ism th at d em an d s in tellig ib ility to d en y th e p o ssib ility o f o th er read ers’ $n d in g m ean in g in a di6cult text–to impute one reader’s failure to recognize meaning to the text (or more likely to th e p o et) an d th ereb y clo se o 9 any second-order discussion that could proceed. L uo

Muhua 羅慕華, w h o w ro te a b o u t L i Jin fa a n d S y m b o list-in sp ire d p o e try in Les con tem porain s d u rin g D a i W a n g sh u ’s h e y d a y in th e 1 9 3 0 s, is e x e m p la ry. H e re c a lls a n e x e g e sis he was asked to write of the chapter “O n the Equality of ⌧ings” 齊物論 of the Zhuangzi 莊

子 for his university philosophy class. H e received high m arks for his w ork, but deep dow n he knew he didn’t understand “O n the Equality of ⌧ings” and that his exegesis was intentionally clouded w ith m ystical B uddhist term inology; Luo accuses the C hinese

Sym bolist poets of an equivalent act of dishonesty. Luo suggests that he can spot nonsense because he, too, has written it, and if he does not allow that he might fail to see the full meaning of his own writing, then he certainly won’t allow that he fails to see the full meaning of Li Jinfa’s. W e m ight paraphrase: not only don’t I k n o w w h a t y o u r p o e try m e a n s– you d o n ’t know either; you just won’t adm it it.

79 A slightly more forgiving approach–though not by much–is to assume that the poet has som e meaning in mind, but that he withholds the means to access it. ⌧is is the im p lic a tio n o f D u X u e zh o n g ’s c a llin g L i’s p o e m s “ in c o m p re h e n sib le , triv ia l e n ig m a s” (se e above). Even a fairly sophisticated critic such as Su X uelin, w ho w rote about Li both in 1933 in Les contemporains a n d a g a in in 1 9 5 9 in T a iw a n , sh a re s c e rta in o f th e se a ssu m p tio n s a b o u t poetry. In the latter article, which set o9 a lengthy debate in Free Youth 自由青年 about modernism in poetry that involved poets Ji Xian 紀弦 (1 9 1 3 -2 0 1 3 ) an d Q in Z ih ao 覃子豪

(1912-1963), Su approaches L i’s poetry by m ean s of an elaborate classical joke, a regulated verse poem which no one but the poet could possibly understand:

⌧e sun is warm; I watch three weavers. ⌧e wind blows high, they struggle two chambers.46 A frog turned over, a white exiting, broad. An earthworm dead, a purple’s growing– Poured out, listening to him play the wutong p h o e n ix , Poem left o9, I receive Jianzhang.47 I retu rn to sit in m y ro o m . Who cares if they $ght to the death!

日煖看三織，風高鬬兩廂， 蛙翻白出濶，蚓死紫之長； 潑聽彈梧鳳，詩拋接建章， 歸來屋裡坐，打煞又何妨！48

Su explains that this is a poem attributed to the Song im perial relative Zhao H an. W hen his

46 Excuse this ungramm aticality. Choosing a preposition for “two chambers” would make the poem apparently easier to un derstan d than it is. A ll the G ertrude Stein-ian touches throughout are likew ise due to m y attem pt to keep the poem as di6cult in English as it is in C hinese.

47 ⌧e reader can guess even without being certain that jia n z h a n g 建章 is a n a m e in th is c a se , so I h a v e tran slated it as o n e.

48 Su Xuelin 蘇雪林, “ X in sh ita n X ia n g zh e n g p a i c h u a n g sh izh e L i Jin fa” 新詩壇象徵派創始者李金髮, Ziyou qingnian 自由青年 22.1 (July 1959): 6.

80 frien ds read it an d asked him to explain , he proceeds lin e-by-lin e, providin g the con text for the poem ’s com position. “⌧e $rst lin e say s th ere w ere th ree sp id ers w eavin g a n et in th e warm sunlight. I became lost in thought watching them. ⌧e second line says there were two sp arro w s $gh tin g o n th e h igh w in d ; th ey fo u gh t fro m m y eastern ch am b er to m y w estern cham ber and then from m y w estern cham ber back to m y eastern cham ber” 詩的第一句是

說有三隻蜘蛛在和煖的陽光裡編織羅網，我不覺看得出神。第二句是說有兩隻鵲兒

趁着高風相鬬，從我的東廂房鬬到西廂房，又從西廂房鬬到東廂房.49 ⌧e explication continues in that m anner for each line, providing inform ation the reader could not possibly know. Som e characters in the poem are even used for their shapes instead of th eir m ean in g s: w h at seem ed to say “a w h ite exitin g , b ro ad ” 白出闊 actually m eant that the frog w as in the shape of a broad w hite 出 (ch u ‘e x it’); sim ila rly “a p u rp le’s g ro w in g ” 紫之長 is a c tu a lly a lo n g p u rp le 之 (zhi, a p a rtic le in d ic a tin g , a m o n g o th e r th in g s, p o sse ssio n ). ⌧e

$nal line of the explication sounds dangerously similar to Li’s “I can’t hope that everyone would understand it”: “Since you haven’t lived my life, you naturally don’t understand what th e p o em say s” 你們既沒有參與我的生活，當然不知詩中說得是些什麼話了.50

A reader who shares none of the poet’s subjective experiences cannot understand any of the di6cult parts of the poem–the meaning of its metaphors, the omitted subjects of its verbs, even the m ode of reference of certain characters, which are occasionally used for their

49 Ib id .

50 Ib id .

81 sh ap es in stead o f th eir m ean in gs. S u ’s exam p le h as alm o st n o th in g in co m m o n w ith a L i Jin fa poem , beginning right o9 the bat with underlying assum ptions about poetry’s autobiographicality, the reasons for linguistic com pression, and the role of interpretation. Yet so m an y o f L i’s read ers ap p ro ach h is p o em s fro m th is set o f assu m p tio n s, d erived it w o u ld seem fro m a sim p listic w ay o f read in g classical p o etry. A n an o n ym o u s resp o n d en t in th e Free

Youth d e b a te , w ritin g a s menwai han 門外漢 (“g u y o u tsid e th e d o o r,” th at is, ‘n o n - sp ecialist’), w rites th at S ym b o list an d M o d ern ist C h in ese p o etry is lik e an en igm a to w h ich he cannot $nd the key. “Poets, please give the ‘key’ directly to us! Please don’t play any more vague, obscure tricks with your language!” 詩人們，請把「 鑰匙」直 接交給讀者吧，不要

再在文字上故弄那一套曖昧、朦朧的玄虛.51

Relatively few critics are willing to move the discussion past the basic question of what a poem means when encountering Li Jinfa, but some are able to put meaning aside tem p o rarily in favo r o f so m eth in g else. M o st freq u en tly, a critic m ay $n d an altern ative to meaning: something that is communicated, but which is non-semantic, and which one cannot quite put one’s $nger on. ⌧is quality takes on di9erent nam es w ith di9erent critics.

Zhong Jingwen says that Li’s poetry being “not so easy to understand” is o9set by something more nebulous, namely what Zhong calls “a digni$ed tone” 一股凝重的情味, w h ic h Io a ts through Z hong’s brain for a w hile after he reads each poem .52 Z h a o Jin g sh e n is slig h tly m o re

51 Menwai Han 門外漢, “ Z a i ta n m u q ia n T a iw a n x in sh i” 再談目前台灣新詩, Ziyou qingnian 自由青年 22.8 (Feb. 1960): 11.

52 Zhong 617.

82 sp eci$c, citin g w ith ap p ro val L i’s “fo reign co lo r” yigu o qingdiao 異國情調, w h ic h is d u e to scarcely m o re th an th e u se o f certain w o rd s o r p h rases th at im p ly a fo reign settin g.53 S u

Xuelin repeats this assessment, characteristically projecting onto it a biographical rationale:

“Truly, m ost of Li’s works were produced in places like D ijon, Paris, and Berlin, and the things he recounts, the scenes he describes are m ostly foreign, so his poetry natural becam e so m eth in g fo reign .”54 In o th e r w o rd s, S u ’s a p p re c ia tio n o f th e p o e try is a id e d b y th e p la c e o f composition indicated at the end of the poem–just the very suggestion of a foreign land is enough to cast an exotic atm osphere behind the w ords of the poem . Z hu Z iqing explicitly sets th e in tan gib le q u alities o f a p o em again st its sem an tic m ean in g: “W h at h e w ish es to express isn’t sense but feeling or em otion” 他要表現的不是意思而是感覺或情感.55 (W e will discuss Zhu Ziqing’s approach to Li Jinfa and other di6cult poetry in more detail below.)

What these readers identify in Li Jinfa is something very similar to what Empson calls

“atm o sp h ere”: “so m eth in g like a sen sation w h ich is n o t attach ed to an y of th e sen ses.”56

⌧is may only be a statement of how they themselves applied their conscious attention when read in g th e p o em ; th u s a m u sical ch o rd is a d irect sen satio n , b u t n o t th erefo re u n an alysab le into its separate notes even at the m om ent of sensing. It can be either felt or thought; the tw o

53 Zhao 140.

54 “L un Li Jinfa de shi.”

55 Zhu Ziqing 朱自清, “ D a o y a n ” 導言, Zhongguo xin wenxue daxi 中國新文學大系 (H o n g K o n g: Xianggang wenxue yanjiu she, 1972): 8.3352.

56 William Empson, Seven Types of Am biguity (L o n d o n : C h a tto a n d W in d u s, 1 9 7 7 ): 1 6 .

83 th in g s are sim ilar b u t d i9eren t; an d it req u ires p ractice to d o b o th at o n ce. O r th e statem en t might, one cannot deny, mean that there has been some confusion of the senses. But it may mean something more important, involving a distinction between ‘sensation’ and ‘feeling’; that w hat the poet has conveyed is no assem bly of gram m atical m eanings, capable of analysis, but a ‘mood,’ an ‘atm osphere,’ a ‘personality,’ an attitude to life, an undi9erentiated mode of being.57

On the one hand, Empson is willing to concede that some poets or poems might convey som ething like an “atm osphere” rather than one or m ore “m eanings.” Yet E m pson is also quite insistent that such a conclusion is no place to halt one’s analysis. “⌧ough there may be an atm osphere to w hich analysis is irrelevant, it is not necessarily anything very resp ectab le.”58 O f th e c ritic s m e n tio n e d a b o v e , o n ly Z h u Z iq in g ta k e s h is a n a ly sis m u c h fu rth er; h e is th e su bject of th e n ext section .

Approaching Obscurity: Structural Disjuncture and “Unthreaded Beads”

Zhu Ziqing was one of the most consistent and important defenders of the Chinese

Sym bolists, a group he identi$ed as including poets inIuenced to varying degrees by the previous half century of French literature, though they hardly com prised a “school”: in addition to Li Jinfa, there w ere C reation Society m em bers W ang D uqing 王獨清 (1 8 9 8 -

1940), Feng Naichao 馮乃超 (1 9 0 1 -1 9 8 3 ) an d M u M u tian 穆木天 (1 9 0 0 -1 9 7 1 ) (w h o actually w ere closely associated) and D ai W angshu. Z hu’s defense of Sym bolist poetics in the

57 Ib id . 1 6 -1 7 .

58 Ib id . 2 1 .

84 introduction to the poetry volum e of the Anthology of Chinese New Literature 中國新文學大

系 was probably the $rst serious attempt to respond to objections from critics and readers th at L i Jin fa’s p o etry w as h ard to u n d erstan d , an arg u m en t h e w o u ld elab o rate o ver tim e.

According to Zhu, the problem was formal, residing in the organization of phrases and im a g e s:

[L i’s] p o em s d o n o t h ave th e u su al stru ctu re [zhangfa 章法]. You can understand them part by part, but if you put it all together, it doesn’t mean anything. W hat he wishes to express isn’t m ean in g but feelin g or em otion ; it’s as if h e’d taken a strin g of beads of all sizes an d colors and hidden the string, and you have to try to string them up for yourself.

他的詩沒有尋常的章法，一部分一部分可以懂，合起來卻沒有意思。他要表現的不 是意思而是感覺或情感；仿佛大大小小紅紅綠綠一串珠子，他卻藏起那串兒，你得 自己穿著瞧.59

Arthur Symons describes the di6culty of Mallarmé’s poetry in similar terms and may have provided the inspiration for Zhu’s thinking.

Mallarmé was obscure, not so much because he wrote di9erently, as because he thought di9erently, from other people. His mind was elliptical, and, relying with undue con$dence on the intelligence of his readers, he em phasized the e9ect of what was unlike other people in his mind by resolutely ignoring even the links of connection that existed between them .60

Like other critics who seek to identify the intangible elem ent com m unicated by a Li Jinfa poem in the absence of an easily stated “m eaning,” Zhu makes recourse to what he calls

“feeling” ganjue 感覺 or “em otion” qinggan 情感. ⌧e m e ta p h o r o f th e lo o se b e a d s, e a c h beautiful and distinct but requiring som e e9ort to com bine into a sensible whole, is an oft- quoted assessm ent of Li’s poetic craft. In a way, it is not fundam entally di9erent from Luo

59 Zhongguo xin wenxue daxi 8 .3 3 5 1 -2 .

60 Arthur Symons, ✏e Symbolist Movement in Literature (N e w Y o rk : D u tto n , 1 9 5 8 ): 1 8 1 .

85 Muhua or Su Xuelin’s complaints that Li’s poems are riddles, puzzles from which the poet has intentionally rem oved essential inform ation. Yet Z hu’s approach, aside from attaching a positive value to suggestive rather than denotative verse, em phasizes the possibility of multiple, personal interpretations. ⌧e phrase I have translated, “You have to try to string th em u p fo r yo u rself,” is literally, “Y o u h ave to strin g th em u p yo u rself and see.” A c c o rd in g to

Zhu, Li Jinfa’s poetry gives the reader the opportunity to experiment–a rare e9ort to account for the reader’s role in producing poetic m eaning, and an invitation to see for oneself what can happen.

Zhu Ziqing says that Li’s zhangfa, h is m e th o d o f stru c tu rin g h is w o rk s, is n o t u su a l, but if Li Jinfa’s poem s are fragm ented or disjointed, then in what way? ⌧ey are certainly quite di9erent from the poem s of Li’s contem porary, the Laforgue-inspired Creation Society poet M u M utian. ⌧ese stanzas from his representative work, “Pale Bells Toll” 蒼白的鐘聲, illu stra te sta rk ly w h a t k in d o f g ra m m a tic a lly d isju n c tiv e p o e m w a s p o ssib le in C h in e se in th e

1920s, and how Li’s poem s em ploy an entirely di9erent repertoire of techniques:

Pale bell tolls rotten haze Disperse ring in the desolate hazy valley ––Withered grass a thousand layers ten thousand–– Listen far-o9 absurd ancient bells Listen a thousand tolls ten thousand

Ancient bells Iutter away on the waves’ shining Ancient bells Iutter away on the gray-green white poplars’ branches Ancient bells Iutter away on the wind’s rustling ––Moon’s reIection carefree carefree–– Ancient bells Iutter away on the white clouds’ Iuttering

蒼白的 鐘聲 衰腐的 朦朧

86 疏散 玲瓏 荒涼的 朦朧的 谷中 ––衰草 千重 萬重—— 聽 永遠的 荒唐的 古鐘 聽 千聲 萬聲

古鐘 飄散 在水波之皎皎 古鐘 飄散 在灰綠的 白楊之梢 古鐘 飄散 在風聲之蕭蕭 ––月影 逍遙 逍遙—— 古鐘 飄散 在白雲之飄飄61

It has been observed how M u em ploys syllables ending in the velar nasal (Hanyu pinyin ‘n g ’) , su ch as can g, zhong, sh en g, menglong, e tc ., to im ita te th e to llin g o f th e b e ll.62 B u t w h a t interests us here is M u’s propensity for parataxis, that is, placing nouns or verbs alongside each other w ithout connecting or relating them explicitly, and his establishm ent of continuity through sim ple repetition and parallelism rather than logical or gram m atical progression. None of these techniques could be more foreign to Li Jinfa’s poetry, right dow n to M u’s expressionistic typographic spacing in place of punctuation, as opposed to L i’s com m as and sem icolons.

If L i Jin fa’s p o em s are d isju n ctive, th erefo re, th ey are n o t so in an y o f th ese w ays, o r at least not on these levels. L i’s fragm entation m ust be on a higher, organizational level. Z hu explains m ore closely his understanding of Sym bolist poetics, saying

⌧e Symbolists are trying to express exquisite scenes; metaphor is their lifeblood, that is “d istan t com p arison s” an d n ot “com p arison s close at han d .”63 H e re , n e a r a n d fa r re fe r n o t to

61 Mu Mutian 穆木天, Mu Mutian juan 穆木天卷, e d . Z h o u L ia n g p e i 周良沛, Zhongguo xinshi ku 中國新 詩庫 1 (W uhan: Changjiang wenyi chubanshe, 1988): 34.

62 Harry Allan Kaplan, ✏e Symbolist Movement in Modern Chinese Poetry, P h .D . d isse rta tio n , H a rv a rd University, 1983 (Ann Arbor: ProQuest/UM I, 1983): 208.

63 Analects 6 .2 8 : “ B e in g a b le to d ra w a n a lo g ie s fro m w h a t is c lo se a t h a n d , o n e c o u ld sa y th is is th e m e th o d o f

87 th e su b stan ce o f th e co m p ariso n b u t to th e m eth o d o f th e co m p ariso n ; th ey can see sim ilarities b etw een tw o th in gs th at o rd in ary p eo p le w o u ld co n sid er d i9eren t. ⌧ey d isco ver new connections between things and then use the most econom ical method of organizing these connections into a poem . “M ost econom ical” m eans they leave out connecting w ords and allow the reader to build a bridge w ith his ow n im agination. Som eone w ho isn’t used to th is w ill ju st see a d ish o f san d , b u t it isn ’t san d ; it’s an o rg an ism . T o see th e o rg an ism , yo u must have some cultivation and training. Once you’ve understood the poem, then you can say if it’s good or bad–and naturally there are bad ones.

象徵詩派要表現的是些微妙的情境，比喻是他們的生命；但是「遠取譬」而不是「近 取譬」。所 謂遠近不指比喻的材料而只比喻的方法；他們能在普通人以為不同的事物 中間看出同來。他們發見事物間的新關係，並且用最經濟的方法將這關係組織成詩； 所謂「 最經濟的」就是將一些聯絡的字句省掉，讓讀者運用自己的想像力搭起橋來。 沒有看慣的只覺得一盤散沙，但實在不是沙，是有機體。要看出有機體，得有相當 的修養與訓練，看懂了纔能說作得好壞——壞的自然有.64

⌧e Chinese expression “a dish of sand” 一盤散沙 means a jumble, something lacking order or cohesion. Zhu’s use of this analogy has som ew hat di9erent im plications from the earlier

“strin g of bead s”: on th e on e h an d , grain s of san d are like bead s, in th at th ey are discrete units, more or less meaningless on their ow n, but capable of being arranged into som e kind of order. O n the other hand, though, as beads have shrunk to grains of sand, they have both increased in num ber and lost their inherent value; w here w e once had a sm all collection of beautiful fragm ents to assem ble, we are now faced with an undi9erentiated mass and called upon to see an “organism” (you jiti 有機體). Z h u seem s to h ave w ish ed to em p h asize, in th is case, the complexity of the poem as he sees it–one cannot, he suggests, merely go about assem bling organs any old w hich w ay, m uch less cells or atom s. To create a living thing from a dish of sand: this is m ore the w ork of the O ld Testam ent deity than an arts and crafts enthusiast. ⌧ere is still “im agination,” but im agination is not enough; in the sam e year, Z hu benevolence.”

64 Zhu Ziqing, X in sh i z a h u a 新詩雜話 (H o n g K o n g: T aip in g sh u ju , 1 9 6 3 ): 2 .

88 wrote an article expressing the necessity of patience and training on the part of the reader.

In th e $rst h alf o f th is year [1 9 3 6 ], q u ite a few gen tlem en h ave d iscu ssed th e p ro b lem o f com m unication in poetry. Som e say poetry should be clear, w hile som e others say poetry cannot and need not alw ays be clear the w ay prose is. ... C om m unication in poetry bears a stro n g relatio n sh ip to m etap h o r an d to fo rm al o rgan izatio n . P o ets’ m etap h o rs n eed to b e original, or at least present a new [take] on an old [trope]. ⌧e organization has to be new as well, it has to change. So [the reader] will feel unaccustomed, feel that it’s hard to understand. Actually most poem s can be understood, if you read them carefully a few times.

今年上半年，有好些位先生討論詩的傳達問題。有些說詩應該明白清楚，有些說， 詩有時候不能也不必像散文一樣明白清楚。⋯⋯詩的傳達，和比喻及組織關係甚大。 詩人的譬喻要新創，至少變故為新，組織也總要新，要變。因此就覺得不習慣，難 懂了。其實大部分的詩，細心看幾遍，也便可明白的.65

Again, there is the argument that Symbolist poetry is organized in an unfamiliar way, but here Zhu em phasizes the education of the reader. Once a reader devotes som e time and e9ort to the reading of a Sym bolist poem , Z hu suggests, he or she w ill begin to “understand” the relatio n sh ip s o u tlin ed in th e p o em an d th u s th e p o em ’s m ean in g, an d , p resu m ab ly, after read in g m an y su ch p o em s an d gain in g p ractice, a read er can learn to see a S ym b o list p o em for th e “organ ism ” it is, rath er th an a sh apeless m ess.

So what does an organism look like? W hat do you get when you string up the beads?

Now let us consider readings of two di6cult, potentially menglong p o e m s b y B ia n Z h ilin , one by Zhu Ziqing and one contained in a postface com posed by the poet him self.

The Limits of Interpretation

In “U nderstanding Poetry” 解詩, Z h u Z iq in g a rg u e s th a t m o st a p p a re n tly d i6c u lt poem s are not so di6cult if one spends a little time with them , a point which he illustrates

65 Xinshi zahua 4 .

89 by interpreting Bian Zhilin’s elliptical, allusive poem , “⌧e Organization of Distance” 距離

的組織.66 ⌧e p o e m re a d s,

I w an t to go u p stairs alon e an d read ✏e Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire When suddenly the star of Rome’s fall appears in the newspaper. Newspaper drops. Map opens, and I remember the instructions of a person far away. ⌧e evening scenery he sent is also gray and hazy. (W h en I aw ak e, th e sk y is tu rn in g d ark , n o th in g to d o , m u st b e a frien d sto p p in g b y.) Gray sky. Gray sea. Gray road. Where am I? I can’t test a clump of soil beneath a lamp. Suddenly I hear m y nam e outside a 1000 doors. I’m so tired ! H as so m eo n e m essed w ith m y b o at in a d ish ? My friend brings along the promise of snow and $ve o’clock.

想獨上高樓讀一遍“羅馬興亡史”， 忽有羅馬滅亡星出現在報上。 報紙落。地圖開，因想起遠人的囑咐。 寄來的風景也暮色蒼茫了。 （醒來天欲暮，無聊，一訪友人吧。） 灰色的天。灰色的海。灰色的路。 哪兒了？我又不會向燈下驗一把土。 忽聽得一千重門外有自己的名字。 好累呵！我的盆舟沒有人戲弄嗎？ 友人帶來了雪意和五點鍾。67

⌧ough Zhu’s e9ort to explain the poem is interesting, it falls short in several ways. First,

Zhu mainly rehashes information Bian himself provides in footnotes, for instance that the

“star of R o m e’s fall” refers to a n ew sp ap er sto ry w h ich m en tion s th at th e ligh t fro m a star at th e tim e o f th e fall o f th e R o m an em p ire is o n ly n o w reach in g earth . S eco n d , Z h u ’s o rig in al contribution to the interpretation of the poem is to explain that certain im ages from the poem are representations (a picture on a postcard) or dream s (the $rst line of Zhu’s com m entary is “⌧is poem describes a daydream ”). Either w ay, Z hu has only succeeded in

66 Xinshi zahua 7 -8 .

67 Xinshi zahua 6 -7 ; B ia n Z h ilin , Shinian shicao: 1930-1939 十年詩草：1930－1939 (H ong Kong: W eiming sh u w u , 1 9 4 2 ): 8 5 -6 .

90 devising a situation where the juxtapositions of the poem can all occur simultaneously; the site o f th eir co n Iict is m o ved fro m th e p o em , w h ich m u st b e in terp reted b y th e read er, to th e psychological state of the speaker in the poem . How ever, the discom fort created by the initial clashes in the poem rem ains. ⌧is interpretation understands a poem less as an organism and more as an enigma–as if the scene of “⌧e Organization of Distance” will come into focus if we can just $nd the right perspective.

If w e are lo o k in g fo r a p o em as a livin g o rgan ism , B ian’s sh o rt q u atrain “F o ssilized

Fish” 魚化石 is p e rh a p s a n id e a l e x a m p le :

I w an t to h ave th e sh ap e of yo u r em b race, I often m elt in th e co n to u rs of th e w ater. Do you really love me like a mirror? Only when we’re far apart are there fossilized $sh.

我要有你的懷抱的形狀， 我往往溶化於水的線條。 你真像鏡子一樣地愛我呢。 你我都遠了乃有了魚化石。68

Bian’s postface to the poem is really just a collection of allusions to a wide variety of texts and authors to w hich he invites com parison, in a m anner that risks obscuring m ore than illu m in a tin g . Explaining the poem, Bian highlights in the interaction of self and other, so m eth in g h e evo k es th ro u gh a p air o f q u o tatio n s: “It m ak es m e th in k o f E lu ard ’s ‘Sh e h as th e fo rm o f m y p alm ,/ S h e h as th e co lo r o f m y eyes.’ W e [C h in ese] h ave S im a Q ian ’s ‘A woman adorns herself for the one whom she pleases’ 我想起愛呂亞(P. E L U A R D )的『她有

68 Shinian shicao 93.

91 我的手掌的形狀，她有我的眸子的顏色』。我們有司馬遷的『女為悅己者容』.69 A t th e sam e tim e as th e p o em an d its co m m en tary d ram atize th e recip ro cal gaze o f tw o in d ivid u als, they also evoke the m utual fascination shared by C hina and its W estern other, as Sim a Q ian’s quotation about duty and recognition (the other half, which Bian leaves out, is “A knight dies for the one who recognizes his merit” 士為知己者死) is p laced in d ialo g w ith an intim ate love poem by a m odern French surrealist. B ian provides a m odel for such in te ra c tio n in h is p re fa c e to th e c o lle c tio n A Record of Carving Insects 雕蟲紀曆: “ I w rite vernacular poetry in new form s, so we should say it is ‘Europeanized.’ ... But then it is certainly also ‘classicized.’ ... ⌧e w ay I see it, the problem is $nding out if in w riting poem s we can ‘change the classics,’ ‘change Europe’” 我寫白話新體詩，要說是‘歐化’⋯⋯那

麼也未嘗不‘古化’。⋯⋯就我自己論，問題是看寫詩能否‘化古’，‘化歐’.70

“C hange the classics” and “change Europe” are puns on “Europeanized” and “classicized,” made by reversing the order of syllables: Ouhua 歐化 to hua’ou 化歐, guhua 古化 to huagu

化古. P e rsiste n c e a n d c h a n g e a re , fu rth e rm o re , e x a c tly th e b in a ry w h ic h m o tiv a te s th e im a g e of the fossil: “W hen a $sh turns into a fossil, the $sh isn’t the sam e $sh it used to be, and neither is the stone” 魚成化石的時候，魚非原來的魚，石也非原來的石了.71 ⌧is

69 Shinian shicao 2 1 1 . ⌧e E lu a rd p o e m is fro m “ L a d y L o v e” ; se e M a ry A n n C a w s, Surrealist Painters and Poets: An Anthology (C a m b rid g e , M A : M IT P re ss, 2 0 0 2 ): 2 0 9 . ⌧e S im a Q ia n q u o ta tio n is fro m th e “B iographies of A ssassins” 刺客列傳 of the Records of the Grand Historian 史記.

70 Bian Zhilin, Diaochong jili 1930-1958 雕蟲紀曆：1930－1958 (Beijing: Renm in wenxue chubanshe, 1979): 15.

71 Shinian shicao 2 1 2 .

92 conceit spurs Bian to further intertextual associations, from D u Fu 杜甫 (“A s th e w ater

Iow s, my mind is without striving;/ M y thoughts slow dow n with the clouds” 水流心無競，

雲在意俱遲), to S u S h i 蘇軾 (“Its track s are left o n th e sn o w y m u d ,/ b u t w h en th e g o o se

Iies away, how will I know where it’s gone?” 泥上偶然留指爪，鴻飛那復計東西), to th e

Book of Changes 易經 (“A s b eg etter o f all b eg ettin g , it is called ch an g e” 生生之謂易72). A ll three sources deal w ith persistence and change, m otion and stillness. A n organism grow s and changes; it incorporates foreign m atter and sheds parts of itself, but in som e essential w ay, it maintains its identity. Even after it has died, a sea creature’s body may gradually $ll with minerals, slowly transforming into something that is no longer a $sh even as it is still the same $sh–and from a wide enough perspective, the world is all like this, “change is the begetter of all begetting.” A poem is simultaneously a well-de$ned, highly-structured, autotelic w hole, som ething that contains its ow n interpretation inside itself by perform ing its ow n m eaning (as “Fossilized Fish” does); and it is som ething com posed out of fragm ents that belong to other structures, som ething perm eable and easily dissolved. A poem as organism is red u cib le to n eith er its fo rm n o r its co n ten t, ju st as th e $sh b o th is an d is n o t th e p h ysical sh ap e th at b eco m es fo ssilized , b u t rath er exists as so m eth in g d yn am ic, so m eth in g p ro d u ced in a n d th ro u g h c re a tiv e a c ts o f re a d in g .

And yet, if the initial problem was that his poems are hard to understand, then Bian has certainly dodged the question. As if suddenly troubled by the never-ending network of

72 Cary F. Baynes, ✏e I Ching or Book of Changes: ✏e Richard Wilhelm Translation (L o n d o n : R o u tle d g e & Kegan Paul Ltd., 1965): 322.

93 associations produced by his ow n four-line poem , Bian breaks o9 his postface abruptly:

“D oes the ‘you’ in the poem refer to the stone? D oes it refer to the w om an’s lover? It seem s

like m ore than that. W hat else then? L et m e think. Forget it. ⌧is is already en ough” 詩中的

「你」就代表石嗎？就代表她的他嗎？似不僅如此。還有甚麼呢？待我想想看。不想了。

這樣就夠了.73 L ik e T a o Y u a n m in g 桃淵明, w h o le a v e s o 9 “ D rin k in g W in e (5 )” 飲酒詩之

五 with a shrug–“⌧ere is real meaning in all of this, but when I want to express it I forget

th e w o rd s” 此中有真意，欲辨已忘言—Bian gives up trying to explain. ⌧e suggestion of

th e in e9ability of profound m eaning m ay be calculated and perform ative (Tao Yuanm ing

“forgot th e w ord s” after com p osing $ve cou p lets of $ve-syllab le rh ym ing verse), bu t it is a

legitim ate rejoinder to readers w ho insist on easily paraphrasable content.

Conclusions: Intelligibility, Figurative Language, and Language at the Edges

⌧roughout this discussion of poetic obscurity, we have repeatedly bumped against

th e p ersisten t exp ectatio n th at a p o em h as a m ean in g w h ich th e p o et w ish es to tell th e read er,

and as w e discussed in chapter one, this expectation has dom inated a large am ount of poetry

criticism in tw entieth century C hina. For a sizable portion of C hinese-speaking readers from

a variety of political backgrounds, poetic language exists to express m eaning, and its failure to

do so is considered a source of frustration and annoyance. In an article about the problem of

com m unication in m odern C hinese poetry, M ichel H ockx proposes that the reason strange

or original m etaphorical im agery is so disturbing to Chinese readers is because of readers’ 73 Shinian shicao 2 1 2 .

94 expectations:

Modern Chinese poetry fails to satisfy readers because it does not, or not always, ful$ll the poetic function which many readers would want it to ful$ll, which is a com m unicative function. T o put it bluntly, poem s are seen by m any not as texts w hich are inherently di6cu lt and require interpretation, but as texts w hich com m unicate a certain m essage, or a certain sen tim en t, an d if th is co m m u n icatio n is h in d ered , fo r in stan ce b ecau se th e lan gu age is to o abstruse or the im ages are too strange, this a9ects the value of the poetic experience.74

Hockx is speaking about his experience reading Menglong poetry in the 1980s, but the words certainly seem applicable to many of the critics we have discussed so far, from Zhao

Jin gw en to S u X u elin to Z h an g M in g. N o d o u b t, th e p erceived o r exp ected “m essage” o f a poem is often quite central to many readers’ enjoym ent, and the absence of a clearly com m unicated m essage leads to defensiveness or dism issal, as w e have already seen. Yet at the sam e tim e, n o t even th e cran k iest critic seem s lik ely to su ggest th at a p o em m igh t as w ell b e rep laced w ith a su m m ary o f its co n ten ts, so th e co m m u n icative is n o t th e o n ly fu n ctio n a poem might ful$ll, even for extrem ely naive readers. To return to an exam ple from the beginning of this chapter, Chairm an M ao’s line, “She [the plum ] sm iles in the grove,” would probably meet with not only com prehension but approval from many readers who do likely place em phasis on the com m unicative function in poetry. A more suggestive observation is

Hockx’s report, based on admittedly anecdotal evidence, that he often found that otherwise quite sophisticated Chinese readers were unable to help him parse even the gram m ar of a poem when only its imagery, and not its gram m ar, were unusual or unfam iliar.75 ⌧e

74 Michel Hockx, “To Tong o r N o t to Tong: ⌧e P ro b le m o f C o m m u n ic a tio n in M o d e rn C h in e se P o e tic s,” Monumenta Serica 5 3 (2 0 0 5 ): 2 6 2 .

75 Ib id . 2 7 1 .

95 possibility that sem antic di6culty might inhibit a reader’s ability to understand the gram m atical structure of a sentence is surprising and seem s contrary to the notion that form

(gram m ar) and content (m eaning) m ight be separated, that problem s a9ecting one could avoid a9ecting the other.

Such a phenom enon, if true, would go to the heart of the Structuralist understanding of form and content, for exam ple Noam Chom sky’s principle of m odularity, elaborated in his

1957 work Sem antic Structures. In th a t w o rk , C h o m sk y p ro v id e s a n e x a m p le , g ro w n q u ite fam ous since, to show that an uninterpretable sentence could still be gram m atical, and th erefo re th at th e sem an tic an d sy n tactic fu n ctio n s are m o d u lar an d in d ep en d en t: “C o lo rless green ideas sleep furiously.”76 U n lik e “ F u rio u sly sle e p id e a s g re e n c o lo rle ss,” C h o m sk y a rg u e s, while the latter sentence is ungrammatical, the former sentence can be recognized as com pletely gram m atical, even though neither sentence m akes any sense. Students of poetry and $gurative language in general m ay feel that, even if w e can agree on w hat is gram m atical or ungram m atical, Chom sky has attem pted to m ake an untenable distinction between in te llig ib le a n d u n in te llig ib le . ⌧e p u rp o rte d u n in te llig ib ility o f C h o m sk y ’s $rst sen ten ce depends on “selection violations”–cases where semantic categories are incompatible, though gram m atical categories m ay agree. For instance, on a literal level, only physical objects can have color, so “green ideas” is a selection violation. But on a $gurative level, “green ideas” might actually be a meaningful phrase.77 In fa c t, C h in e se lin g u ist Y u e n R e n C h a o (Z h a o

76 Noam Chomsky, Sem antic Structures (⌧e H agu e: M o u to n & C o ., 1 9 6 5 ): 1 5 .

77 “Furiously sleep ideas green colorless,” seem s, as w ell, not only not ungram m atical but totally allow able in

96 Yuanren 趙元任, 1 8 9 2 -1 9 8 2 ), w h o h im se lf to o k q u ite a n in te re st in p o e try, in c lu d in g N e w

Poetry, show ed in 1971 the possibility of providing context to “m ake sense out of nonsense”:

I h ave a frien d w h o is alw ays fu ll of id eas, go o d id eas an d b ad id eas, $n e id eas an d cru d e ideas, old ideas and new ideas. B efore putting his new ideas into practice, he usually sleeps over them to let them m ature and ripen. H ow ever, when he is in a hurry, he som etim es puts his ideas into practice before they are quite ripe, in other words, while they are still green. Som e of his green ideas are quite lively and colorful, but not always, som e being quite plain and colorless. W hen he rem em bers that som e of his colorless ideas are still too green to use, he will sleep over them , or let them sleep, as he puts it. But som e of those ideas may be mutually conIicting and contradictory and when they sleep together in the same night they get into furious $ghts and turn the sleep into a nightm are. ⌧us m y friend often com plains th at h is colorless green id eas sleep fu riou sly.78

We can see that Chao’s response to Chomsky is very similar to the styles of reading we have put forward as approaches to menglong. W h e re Z h a o Jin g sh e n sa y s, “A qin c a n n o t ro a m ,”

Zhu Ziqing says, “You have to try to string them up for yourself.” Where Chomsky says, “An idea cannot be green,” Yuen R en C hao says, “L et’s see if w e can think of w ays in w hich an idea could be green.” 79 N o ta b ly, C h a o ’s in te rp re ta tio n is n o t d e $n itiv e o r sin g u la r: h is p o in t is not to $x the line’s meaning, but rather to show how meaning could com e out of it. W hether or not the version he presents here is $nal or satisfactory, we could propose any num ber of alternative readings to explain w hat initially seem ed inexplicable. O ur w illingness to put those readings forw ard m ay be the m easure of how com fortable w e are w ith menglong.

poetry, where inversions of subject and verb and of modi$er and modi$ed are acceptible.

78 Rosemary Levenson and Yuen Ren Chao, Yuen Ren Chao, Chinese Linguist, Phonologist, Com poser, & Author (B erk eley: R egio n al O ral H isto ry O 6ce, 1 9 7 7 ): 2 2 2 .

79 Paul De M an paraphrases Em pson’s com m entary on Andrew M arvell’s phrase “a green thought in a green sh ad e”: “th e reco u rse to th e m o d i$er ‘green ’ to q u alify w h at is th en created b y th o u gh t, re-in tro d u ces th e pastoral world of innocence, of ‘hum ble, perm anent, undeveloped nature which sustains everything, and to which everything must return’” (“⌧e Dead End of Formalist Criticism” 239). Should we wonder if ideas can be green?

97 Perhaps the conclusion to be draw n is that, read the ‘wrong’ way, any $gurative la n g u a g e is u n in te llig ib le , a n d re a d th e ‘rig h t’ w a y, a n y th in g u n in te llig ib le is m e re ly

$gurative. ⌧e issue depends on fam iliar questions of identity and di9erence, of the ontological boundaries between conceptual categories; speaking about the question of allegory in traditional C hinese aesthetics, H aun Saussy asks, “W hat are categories but sets of allow able m oves w ith the verb ‘is’? A nd how are the m any di9erent categorical m aps (m aps not, by the way, coterm inous with cultures or languages) to be reconciled except by allow ing th at verb to m ean m o re th an o n e th in g at th e sam e tim e?” 80 S a u ssy su g g e sts th a t w e c o n sid e r th e existen ce o f a tro p e called “literalizatio n ,” 81 w h ic h w o u ld b e tre a tin g c a te g o rie s a s rig id and narrow . If the production of m eaning in a w riterly text the task of the reader, then the failure to produce it is also the fault of reader. L ack of m ean in g is there for those w ho w ould lo o k fo r it.

Sim ilar to Saussy, Em pson had also pointed to the perm eable boundary between lite ra l a n d $gurative w hen it is illum inated by a second language:

It is o d d to co n sid er th at w h at is a d o u b le m ean in g in o n e lan gu age is o ften o n ly a com pactness of phrasing in another; that in the sophisticated tongues of m any savage tribes you cannot say: ‘Bring me my gun, the dogs, and three beaters’–using the same verb, and the same inIexion of it, for three such di9erent actions–without being laughed at as a man who has made a bad pun.82

⌧ere is a dimension to this problem which necessarily implicates translation, as obscure

80 Saussy 45.

81 Ib id . 4 2 .

82 Em pson 7 0 .

98 lan guage straddles the border of a lan guage or literary tradition ; perhaps it is n o acciden t that

Zhang Ming, in the beginning of this chapter, said that Du Yunxie’s poem seemed like it had been written in a foreign language. ⌧roughout this discussion, we have confronted again and again attem pts at draw ing analogies betw een the C hinese and W estern traditions, attem pts w hose success or failure is alw ays in question, and w hich illum inate the instability of the category of literary obscurity, of menglong. W h e th e r o r n o t o n e c o n sid e rs L i Jin fa’s poetry “Sym bolist” seem s to depend largely on one’s opinion of Sym bolism , but it is equally possible and equally di6cult to ask if W ang W ei’s poetry is Sym bolist. Is obscurity/menglong so m eth in g th at exists in o n e literary trad itio n , o r in all o f th em ? C an th e o b scu re/menglong tendencies of modern Chinese poets–Li Jinfa, the Taiwanese Modernist poets, the Mainland

Menglong poets–be explained as mere imitations of Western literary movements, movements either understood poorly by their Chinese practitioners or which could not survive in C hina or T aiw an, w ithout the necessary social/econom ic preconditions? If a source text is itself o b scu re/menglong, if its m e a n in g is n o t sta b le o r if w h a t it c o n v e y s is n o t paraphrasable in language, how would one translate it? How would you know if two texts produce a similar lack of sense in their respective languages? W e can see how menglong language is rejected as C hinese’s “other,” som ething that is both part of the language and outside it.

99 Chapter 3 Musicality

Zhu Guangqian and the Rhythm of New Poetry

“Sound is an arbitrary carrier of structure.” Ferdinand de Saussure, Course in General Linguistics

“W hat has sound got to do w ith m usic?” Charles Ives, Essays Before a Sonata

The Music of Modernity

What is the nature of rhythm as it pertains to poetry? Is it an objective fact, an observable structure composed of alternating distinctive features–of stress, of pitch, of duration? Or is it a subjective perception, a listener’s (or reader’s) response to the overall organization of all the elem ents of the poem , including sounds, m eanings, and associations?

On the one hand, the sonic aspect of a poem may simply mark it as a poem, or as a certain kind of poem , and thus introduce certain conventional expectations into dialog with the sem an tic co n ten t o f th e p o em . O n th e o th er h an d , th e so u n d o f p o etry m ay seem to m ean so m eth in g m u ch m o re co n crete, if n o t exactly p arap h rasab le. S o u n d , it seem s, is m o re th an arbitrary but less than sense-m aking, and for m any poets and readers in tw entieth century

China, musicality is central to the experience of reading and writing poetry. Discussing the

“m u sicality” of p o etry is on e w ay to p reven t p o etic fo rm ’s red u ction to th e statu s of an in c id e n ta l o rn a m e n ta tio n o f m e a n in g , o r a n a u x ilia ry re in fo rc e m e n t o f th a t m e a n in g .1

1 Although I will use the terms “rhythm” and “musicality” more or less interchangeably, they are not the same th in g , even in th e restricted co n text o f p o etry. H o w ever, in th e aesth etic th eo ries o f Z h u G u an g q ian an d

100 ⌧e early conversations on the form of New Poetry are full of intriguing provocations com paring poetry to m usic. W hen W en Yiduo 聞一多 (1 8 9 9 -1 9 4 6 ) listed “m u sical b eau ty”

音樂的美 as one of the three aesthetic categories that N ew Poetry should strive to attain, he was advocating the use of regular meter–a practice that had fallen out of favor during the

1920s, rem iniscent as it was of the poetic practice of the Chinese past. Yet even those poets who rejected the use of meter in their poetry spoke of poetry’s musicality and the importance of rhythm . In a letter d ated M arch 3 0 , 1 9 2 0 , G u o M o ru o 郭沫若 (1 8 9 2 -1 9 7 8 ) w ro te to

Zong Baihua 宗白華 (1 8 9 7 -1 9 8 6 ) fro m Jap an :

We’re on the train now! We’re going to Dazaifu. Dazaifu is still far from here. It’s probably ten m iles fro m H ak ata statio n to F u tsu k aich i, an d an o th er tw o m iles o f co u n trysid e fro m Fustukaichi to Dazaifu. ⌧e weather is $ne today, the train is rushing over the verdant $elds like an intrepid, determ ined youth, striving tow ards a hopeful future. Fly! Iy ! A ll o f life’s brilliant green glow is dancing before our eyes. Fly! Iy! Iy! M y self is dissolved into this lim itle ss rh y th m . I a m c o m p le te ly u n i$ed w ith this train, w ith G reat N ature. A gainst the window, I gaze at Nature, twirling and dancing, I listen to the ta n -ta processional of the train ’s w h eels, I am ecstatic! ecstatic!

我們現在正在火車當中呀！我們是要往太宰府去的。太宰府離此處還遠，由博多驛 車行至二日市，可十英里。由 二日市至太宰府尚有二英里的光景。今 日天氣甚好，火 車在青翠的田疇中急行，好像個勇猛忱毅的少年向著希望瀰滿的前途努力奮邁的一 般。飛！飛！一切青翠的生命燦爛的光波在我們眼前飛舞。飛！飛！飛！我的“自我 ”融化在這個磅礡雄渾的 Rhythm 中去了！我同火車全體，大自然全體，完全合而 為一了！我憑著車窗望著旋回飛舞的自然，聽著車輪鞺韃的進行調，痛快！痛快！ 2

Guo’s use of the English word “rhythm” calls attention to its special status in his poetic th o u g h t o f th e tim e: in th is letter, rh y th m u n ites m an , m ach in e, an d n atu re in o n e m o m en t

⌧eodor Lipps discussed below, rhythm is such a central element of poetry’s musicality, and of music as su ch , th at I w ill allo w th em to stan d in fo r each o th er.

2 Huang Chunhao 黃淳浩, e d ., Guo Moruo shuxin ji shang 郭沫若書信集上 (Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe, 1 9 9 2 ) 1 1 7 . ⌧e w o rd “rh y th m ” a p p e a rs in E n g lish in th e o rig in a l.

101 of aesthetic ecstasy. Even Guo’s prose begins to m im ic the train’s insistent rhythm ic repetition as his excitem ent for the rush of the scenery and the rhythm of the train grow s: “Fly! Iy! Iy!”

Despite rejecting the use of regular meter in his early works, Guo still wrote of rhythm as an essential part of poetry; how ever, he advocates, in his ow n English phrase, “intrinsic rhythm ”

(neizai yunlü 內在韻律) or “form less rhythm ” (wuxing yunlü 無形韻律), as o p p o sed to waizai yunlü 外在韻律—which Guo translates into English not as “external rhythm” but, revealin gly, “extran eo u s [sic] rh yth m .” H o w can rh yth m b e “fo rm less,” w h en o u r in tu itio n tells us rhythm is precisely “form al” in n ature? G uo speci$cally ru les o u t an y o f th e lik ely de$nitions of the term : intrinsic rhythm , he says, “is not any ‘ping shang qu ru’ [th e fo u r to n es o f classical C h in ese verse], ‘h ig h lo w risin g fallin g ,’ o r ‘gong shang zhi yu’ [fo u r n o te s o f the tradition al C hin ese m usical scale]; n or is it an y tw o-syllable rhym es or rhym es stuck in th e m id d le o f sen ten ces!” 並不是什麼平上去入，高下抑揚，強弱長短，宮商徵羽；也

並不是什麼雙聲疊韻，什麼押在句中的韻文.3 ⌧e se fa m ilia r c a te g o rie s o f p o e tic o r musical form are all “extraneous”–Guo’s version of poetic rhythm is something that necessarily eludes the grasp of any but the most superior readers and poets but which is nonetheless essential to true poetry. It is “the natural ebbs and Iow s of the em otions” 內在的

韻律便是‘情緒的自然消漲’; it “a d d re sse s itse lf to th e h e a rt a n d n o t to th e e a r” 訴諸心

而不訴諸耳.4 S u c h a n in e 9a b le q u a lity re q u ire s a sp e c ia l k in d o f re a d e r/liste n e r: “ ⌧is k in d

3 Ib id . 5 1 .

4 Ib id .

102 of rhythm is extrem ely subtle; anyone who hasn’t attained poetry’s inner sanctum sim ply cannot understand it” 這種韻律異常微妙，不曾達到詩的堂奧的人簡直不會懂.5 ⌧is rem ark p red icts a sim ilar o n e fro m alm o st fo rty years later, b y Ji X ian 紀弦 (1 9 1 3 -2 0 1 3 ), writing in Taiwan: “All old poetry of the past was addressed to the Ieshly ears and Ieshly eyes. Modern poetry is di9erent: it is addressed to the mind’s ear and the mind’s eye–no! it is a d d re sse d to th e e n tire sp irit” 過去一切舊詩是訴諸肉耳與肉眼的。但是現代詩則否：

它是訴諸心耳與心眼的——不！它是訴諸全心靈的.6 B o th p o e ts a re o b v io u sly concerned w ith di9erentiating their poetic practice from an essentialized “old” poetry, and both poets do so by rejecting physical, or form al, constraints; they both even use the sam e verbal com pound, su z h u 訴諸 “sp eak in g to” (w h ich I h ave tran slated “ad d ressed to”) as th ey p ro p o se th e existen ce o f sen so ry o rg an s o th er th an th o se lim ited to th e p h y sical w o rld .

Di9erentiating new from old for Guo Moruo and Ji Xian means moving from the plane of the physical to the plane of the spiritual, and thus from the super$cial to the essential; at the sam e tim e, it requires a reader of specially heightened aesthetic sensitivity.

Just as G uo M oruo dem ands a reader w ho has “entered poetry’s inner sanctum ,” Ji X ian says th at it is n o g reat h o n o r fo r a p o et to b e u n d ersto o d b y every “o ld cro n e” la o yu 老嫗 (as B ai

Ju y i’s 白居易 poems were said to be)–that “just like Boya had Zhong Ziqi to listen to him

5 Ib id . 5 2 .

6 Ji X ian, “X iandai shi de chuangzuo yu xinshang” 現代詩的創作與欣賞 in Ziyou qingnian 自由青年 22.3 (1 A u g. 1 9 5 9 ) 8 -9 .

103 when he played the qin, [h a v in g o n e sy m p a th e tic liste n e r] is e n o u g h ” 正如伯牙鼓琴，而有

鍾子期的傾聽，這就夠了.7 W hat G uo M oruo characterizes in poetry’s “m usicality” is not its form al structure, but rather a dream of unm ediated com m unication, not constrained by cultural or historical determ inants. G uo’s version of R om anticism is $xated on intrinsic, tran scen d en t essen ces, an d it can n o t to lerate craft th at o p erates m erely o n th e su rface, o n th e ear instead of the heart. Poetry, to G uo, “just needs to be a truly beautiful w om an; it doesn’t matter what she’s wearing. And if she’s not wearing anything, all the better!” 只要是真正的

美人穿件什麼衣裳都好，不穿衣裳的裸體更好!8 In G u o ’s p o e tic s, fre e v e rse a n d its

“intrinsic rhythm ” represent the absence of external constraint and therefore prom ise freedom for the individual–the “freedom” (ziyou 自由) o f “free” verse (ziyoushi 自由詩)– and the possibility of direct, unm ediated expression betw een the poet and the right reader. If we are not already Zhong Ziqi, the ideal listener, we can’t understand Guo Moruo’s music: th e m u sical is th at w h ich creates th e ap p earan ce o f in tu itiven ess. In th is k in d o f p o e tic a l th o u g h t, if m u sicality is a q u ality o f p o etic lan g u ag e, th en it is ex actly th at q u ality th at m ak es language beautiful w hile concealing its ow n cultural or historical m ediation, that appeals to

7 Ib id . ⌧e story of Boya and Zhong Ziqi is reco rd ed in th e Lüshi chunqiu: w h e n B o y a p la y e d th e qin, Z h o n g Ziqi could understand intuitively Boya’s state of mind purely by listening to the music. For instance, when Boya thought of Mt. Tai as he played, Ziqi exclaimed, “How marvelous is your playing! Grand and majestic, like M t. T ai!” Speci$cally, th e text states th at B oya’s zhi 志—his attention (or intention), his imagination– was set on Mt. Tai. According to the old formula from the Shang shu, th a t k in d o f in te n tio n , zhi, is e x a c tly what is given expression in poetry.

8 “L un shi san zha” 論詩三札 in Yang Kuanghan and Liu Fuchun, eds., Zhongguo xiandai shilun 中國現代 詩論 (G uangzhou: H uacheng chubanshe, 1991) 53.

104 th e in tu itio n rath er th an th e in tellect.9

Despite Guo Moruo’s ideological investments, his insistence on a quality of poetic beauty that is neither dependent on its content (or meaning, or message) nor surface form al features, but w h ose appreciation is at least partly based on in tuition an d w h ose basis is di6cult to analyze, is a pow erful provocation. W e can $nd other discussions of literary musicality that point toward the same possibility. For instance, contem porary Am erican com poser A lan Shockley has studied M odernist novels in term s of H einrich Schenker’s

Ursatz (the “deep structure” that underlies W estern tonal m usic):

Certainly such basic techniques of poetic analysis as scansion, the labeling of rhyme scheme, the search for assonance and consonance, are all m ethods of locating and analyzing the musical elements within a poetic text. ⌧ese are also, usually, the labeling of local-level events: they are, in Schenkerian term s, techniques for dealing w ith the Vordergrund, o r foreground. ⌧ere is also som ething to be gained, som ething to be learned from applying a know ledge of larger-scale m usical devices, com positional techniques, strategies for m usical development, formal structures–perhaps even the idea of a generative and multi-leveled structure–to an essentially non-musical text.10

Shockley’s suggestion is that the rhythm of the written word can appear not only on the su rface, in m etrical o r rh ym in g e9ects, b u t also o n a level n o t im m ed iately ap p aren t to th e read er’s sen so ry p ercep tio n . S h o ck ley rem in d s u s th at “m u sical” d o es n o t m erely m ean

“repetitive”–musical patterns may be produced through a great many operations besides

9 For a similarly “m ystical” e9usion about music, both “audible” and “inaudible,” see Xu Zhimo’s translation of Baudelaire’s “U ne charogne,”“Si shi” 死尸 in Yu si 語絲 3 (1 Dec. 1924): 5–7, as well as Haun Saussy’s discussion “D eath and Translation” in Representations 9 4 .1 (S p rin g 2 0 0 6 ): 1 1 2 -1 3 0 . A lso se e L u X u n ’s sarcastic resp o n se “’Y in yu e’?” 音樂 in Yu si 5 (1 5 D e c . 1 9 2 4 ), w h e re h e rid ic u le s X u ’s tra n sla tio n a s w e ll a s th e id ea o f a sp ecially -attu n ed listen er/read er.

10 Alan Shockley, Music in the Words: Musical Form and Counterpoint in the Twentieth Century Novel (B u rlin gto n , V erm o n t: A sh gate, 2 0 0 9 ) 2 .

105 rep etitio n . ⌧is is w h y E zra P o u n d w as ab le to d escrib e Im agist free verse p ractice in opposition to regularity, while still em phasizing its m usicality: “A s re g a rd in g rh y th m : to com pose in the sequence of the m usical phrase, not in sequence of a m etronom e.”11 A satisfyin g th eo ry o f m u sicality as it p ertain s to m o d ern C h in ese p o etic p ractice w o u ld account for deep structure, not just surface structure; it w ould address historical change, rath er th an p o sitin g tran sh isto rical u n iversals o r arb itrarily d ivid in g tim e in to “m o d ern” an d past. Philosopher Zhu Guangqian’s 朱光潛 (1896-1986) aesthetic theory provides just such an approach to poetry, and it form s an under-appreciated contribution to the discussion on th e p o ssib ilities o f N ew P o etry.

Zhu Guangqian may be an unusual $gure to address in a discussion of modern

Chinese New Poetry, since he was generally unimpressed by such poetry, and since his critiques of new poetry’s vices (its im m aturity, form al sloppiness, lack of depth, insu6cient nativization, etc.) very much mirror those of other detractors through the years. ⌧ough he wrote articles praising the poetry of Dai Wangshu 戴望舒 (1 9 0 5 -1 9 5 0 ), F ei M in g 廢名

(1 9 0 1 -1 9 6 7 ), an d F en g Z h i 馮至 (1 9 0 5 -1 9 9 3 ),12 a n d p u b lish e d p o e m s b y th e m a n d o th e rs in th e m a g a zin e Literature 文學雜誌, h is 1 9 5 6 a rtic le “ W h a t C a n M o d e rn P o e try L e a rn from C lassical Poetry?” 新詩從舊詩能學習的些什麼？13 more than balances the positive

11 Ezra Pound, “A Retrospect,” in T.S. Eliot, ed., Literary Essays of Ezra Pound (N e w Y o rk : N e w D ire c tio n s, 1968) 3.

12 Shu-m ei Shih, ✏e Lure of the Modern: Writing Modernism in Semicolonial China, 1917-1937 (B e rk e le y : U C Press, 2001): 185-186. 13 “X inshi cong jiushi neng xuexi de xie shem e?” in Guangming ribao (N o v e m b e r 2 4 , 1 9 5 6 ). A n E n g lish translation appears in H ualing N ieh, Literature of the Hundred Flowers (N e w Y o rk : C o lu m b ia U P, 1 9 8 1 ), p p .

106 th in g s h e h ad to say.

My guess is that many modern poems do not appeal to readers precisely because the new poets haven’t learned enough about the technique of form from our rich and long tradition. ⌧ey trust too much in ‘natural expression,’ and consequently their poems become prose divided into lines–and mediocre prose at that.

依我猜測，許多新詩之不能引人入勝，正因為我們的新詩人在運用語言的形式技巧 方面，向我們的豐富悠遠的傳統裡學習的太少。他們過於信任“自然流露”，結果 詩往往成為分行的散文，而且是不大高明的散文。14

⌧ough Zhu’s article does some injustice to the young tradition of New Poetry, for instance by com paring the absolute pinnacles of the classical tradition to the hordes of young, enthusiastic but unaccom plished new poets, Z hu touches a sore spot w hen he $nds fault in particular with new poetry’s lack of musicality–its formal unsophistication.

Tradition is not just a question of form , but it can’t fail to involve som e questions of form . Poetry is language that has a sonic structure.15 S u c h stru c tu re is a n im p o rta n t e le m e n t o f poetry of all countries, and it is an elem ent which is primarily form al. ⌧e poetry of any country has its ow n characteristic sonic form s that have been passed dow n through the generations. ... Sonic form s evolved as the language itself evolved. ... ⌧ose things which have su rvived fo r a lo n g tim e an d ch an ged relatively little co u ld b e called th e b asis o f th e so n ic stru ctu re o f a co u n try’s p o etry.

傳統固然不僅是形式的問題，但是也不能不同時是形式問題。詩是用有音律的語言 的。音律無論在哪一國詩裡都是一個重要的成分，而同時也是一種偏於形式的成份。 每一國詩都有些歷代相承的典型的音律形式⋯⋯ 隨著語言的變遷，音律形式也往 往隨之變遷。⋯⋯這些歷代較長，變遷得較少的東西可以說是一國詩的音律的基礎 。 16

When Zhu critiques the rhythms of Chinese New Poetry, he does not do so merely on the

23-29.

14 Ib id .

15 ⌧e term I have translated “sonic structure,” yinlü 音律, in c lu d e s b o th rh y th m a n d m e lo d y, o r fo r p o e try, meter and tonal regulation.

16 Ib id .

107 basis of subjective taste, but rather in term s of the most fundam ental question of aesthetics, th at o f su b ject an d o b ject. R h y th m ic stru ctu res, h e arg u es, are co m m o n to a p eo p le; it is rh yth m th at creates th e so cial fu n ctio n o f p o etry.17 “ W ith th e c o m m o n fo u n d a tio n o f a so n ic stru ctu re, p o etry w ill p ro d u ce th e sam e em o tio n s in m em b ers o f a gro u p . In o th er w o rd s, with the same tune [ton gd ia o 同調], p eo p le w ill feel th e sam e em o tio n s [ton gga n 同感], an d th ey can sy m p ath ize w ith each o th er [ton gq in g 同情]” 有了音律上的公同基礎，在感染

上就會在一個集團中產生大致相同的情感上的效果。換句話說，“同調”就會“同

感”，也就會“同情”.18 ⌧e p h y sic a l, so n ic p ro p e rtie s o f p o e try a re th e re a so n fo r poetry’s intersubjective nature; in fact, a com m on reaction to a melody is the basis for sym p ath y.19 If o u r d e $n itio n o f “m u sic a lity ” in p o e try h a s b e e n th a t a sp e c t o f p o e try th a t conceals its m ediatedness by appearing to be intuitive, in this case, Z hu has elided the historical axis (“those things that have lasted long and changed little”) in order to em phasize th e co n cep t o f a n atio n al fo rm . ⌧e foreign-inspired m eters em ployed since the M ay Fourth

Era have not “taken root among the people” 在我們人民中間就沒有“根”,20 b u t th e problem is not one of historical incidentals. Rather, the rhythm s do not accord with the

17 In th e p h rase “so cial fu n ctio n ” w e can certain ly d etect a M arxist-L en in ist cast, b u t th e n o tio n o f a racial o r ethn ic basis for poetic m eter is a com m on place in nineteenth an d early-tw en tieth cen tury prosody studies, with roots further back in Romanticism.

18 “X inshi cong jiushi neng xuexi de xie shem e?”

19 In Z h u ’s d iscu ssio n s o f rh yth m , p resen ted b elow , em p ath y creates th e p o ssib ility fo r aesth etic exp erien ce. Here, it is the common musical language that proves the possibility for sympathy–a musical ethics. Zhu’s examples of how poetry organizes and unites group–worksongs and “⌧e East is Red”–are a nod to populism .

20 “X inshi cong jiushi neng xuexi de xie shem e?”

108 natural rhythm s of the speech of Chinese people.

An Aesthetics of Empathy

In h is ad h eren ce to an id ealist, su b jective u n d erstan d in g o f b eau ty, Z h u G u an gq ian is far to the right of much of the received canon of modern Chinese thinkers and critics–not only in the M ao era, but the late Republican period as well. Nevertheless, Zhu dem onstrated again and again his w illingness to investigate and revise his view s through argum entation, and he did com e to support certain aspects of the N ew C ulture m ovem ent and eventually even M arxist thought.21 A te sty e x c h a n g e b e tw e e n Z h u a n d L u X u n c a n h e lp u s p la c e Z h u

Guangqian’s aesthetics into context.22 In a n o p e n le tte r to X ia M ia n zu n 夏丏尊 in 1 9 3 5 concerning a w ell-know n couplet by the Tang poet Q ian Q i 錢起, Z h u c ite s th e $n a l tw o lines from the poem on “⌧e G oddess of the X iang R iver Playing the Z ither” 湘靈鼓瑟:

曲終人不見，江上數峰青。

⌧e song ends and she is gone; ⌧e peaks above the river are green.

Zhu concludes that “the highest condition of art is not in vehemence” 藝術的最高境界都

不在熱烈, b u t ra th e r in “se re n ity ” 靜穆.23 Z h u p ra ise s T a o Q ia n fo r th is q u a lity : “ Q u Y u a n ,

21 See, for instance, Ban W ang, ✏e Sublime Figure of History (S ta n fo rd , C a lifo rn ia : S ta n fo rd U n iv e rsity P re ss, 1997) 157-159.

22 My thanks to Satoru Hashimoto for bringing this discussion to my attention.

23 “Shuo ‘qu zhong ren bujian jiangshang shu feng qing’ --da X ia M ianzun xiansheng” 說“曲終人不見江上 數峰青”--答夏丏尊先生 in Zhu Guangqian quanji (H e fe i: A n h u i jia o y u c h u b a n sh e , 1 9 8 7 -) 8 :3 9 6 .

109 Ruan Ji, Li Bai, Du Fu–they’re all a little bit like the bug-eyed guardian statues at a temple, indignant and unhappy. B ut Tao Q ian is com pletely ‘serene’, w hich is w hat m akes him great”

屈原、阮籍、李白、杜甫都不免有些像金剛怒目，憤憤不平的樣子。陶潛渾身是“靜穆

”，所以他偉大.24

Lu Xun took acerbic exception to this characterization, arguing that the couplet only seem s so vagu e an d su ggestive in th e ab sen ce o f th e fu ll p o em ; m o reo ver, Z h u ’s aesth etics severely d isp leased th e cran k y L u . A s w e m igh t exp ect, th e au th o r o f “⌧e Pow er of Mara

Poetry” and “D iary of a M adm an” seriously disliked the idea of art produced or appreciated in “serenity.” H is rebuttal of Z hu’s rem arks com es in “U ntitled M anuscript 7” 題未定草

（七） fro m Second Collection of Essays from Q iejie Pavilion 且介亭雜文二集 : “A m o n g great authors throughout history, there is not a single one who is ‘com pletely serene.’ Tao

Qian is great exactly because he is not ‘c o m p le te ly se re n e .’ ... If h e is re v e re d fo r h is ‘se re n ity ’ now, it’s because anthologists have cherry-picked his works in order to minimize and abuse him” ‘歷來偉大的作者’，是沒有一個‘渾身是靜穆’的。陶潛正因為並非‘渾身是

靜穆’，所以他偉大。⋯⋯現在之所以往往被尊為‘靜穆’，是因為他被選文家和

摘句家所縮小，凌遲了.25 ⌧e w o rd th a t I h a v e tra n sla te d “a b u se” h e re , lin g ch i 凌遲, is th e key point in the passage. Although it can m ean “abuse” or “persecute” in a $gurative sense, its basic meaning is a form of public punishm ent in which the convict is subjected at length to a

24 Ib id .

25 Lu Xun, “Untitled Manuscript 7” 題未定草（七） in Lu Xun quanji (B eijing: R enm in w enxue chubanshe, 1981) 6.444.

110 great m any sm all cuts and am putations; typically, in a judicial sentence, lin g ch i is fo llo w e d b y th e p h rase sh iz h o n g 示眾, “in public view.” Lu Xun’s image is incredibly vivid–scholars like

Zhu who insist on serenity have castrated the revolutionary potential of the arts, not just of th is ag e b u t o f p rio r ag es. O n th e o th er h an d , th e p h rasin g can n o t h elp b u t call to m in d L u

Xun’s other depictions of public execution, in “⌧e True Story of Ah Q” 阿 Q正傳, “A

Public Execution” 示眾, a n d n o t le a st o f a ll th e p re fa c e to A Call to Arms 吶喊. In o n e o f th e foundational anecdotes of the history of m odern C hinese literature, L u X un determ ined to becom e a writer when he saw photographs of his fellow Chinese looking on with indi9erence as their countrym an w as executed by Japanese soldiers. W hat disturbed Lu X un w as not the cruelty of the Japanese, but the im passivity of the C hinese view ers. H is indignant defense of

Tao Qian shows that he could not bear “serenity” in the face of cruelty and injustice; passive sp ectato rsh ip w as n o t m erely an o ld -fash io n ed m o d el o f aesth etic exp erien ce, b u t a p o litically unacceptable one at that.

Zhu’s letter to Xia Mianzun and Lu Xun’s reaction date from 1935, a year before Zhu published his sem inal Psychology of Literature and Art 文藝心理學. Psychology of Literature and Art, a sp ra w lin g w o rk in c o rp o ra tin g th e a e sth e tic s o f K a n t a n d C ro c e , re c e n t G e rm a n experim ental psychology, and elem ents of Z hu’s ow n classical C hinese education, features the concept of empathy–translated by Zhu as yiqing zu oyon g 移情作用, “empathy-e9ect”–as an im portant elem ent in the aesthetic experience. ⌧e discourse of em pathy, or Einfühlung, becam e a major current in Germ an aesthetics in the last quarter of the nineteenth century,

111 when the term was coined by Robert Vischer (1847-1933); it was the basis for the aesthetic experim ents of ⌧eodor Lipps (1851-1914) and later of the British psychologist Edw ard

Bullough (1880-1934). According to art critic Juliet Koss, by the 1920s, Einfühlung h a d b e e n red u ced in E u ro p ean aesth etics to “a co n cep tu al fo il, a fem in in e w eak n ess.” 26 ⌧e a sso c ia tio n of em pathy with fem ininity reached the extent that, by Zhu’s tim e, its only notable rem aining proponents w ere three fem ale researchers, V ernon Lee (1856-1935), C lem entina

Anstruther-⌧omson (1857-1921), and Husserl’s student Edith Stein (1891-1942),27 th e $rst tw o of w hom receive regular m ention in Psychology of Literature and Art. M e a n w h ile , m o re

“ad van ced ” artistic elem en ts in E u ro p e w ere u sin g Einfühlung a s a fo il fo r th e ir o w n th e o rie s, especially Bertolt Brecht, w ho, after w itnessing a perform ance by M ei Lanfang 梅蘭芳 in

Moscow in May of 1935, penned his classic essay on “Alienation E9ects in Chinese Acting,” de$ning the alienation-e9ect (VerfremdungseJekt) sp eci$cally ag ain st “em p ath y th eater

[ein fühlun gstheater].” 28 A c c o rd in g to K o ss, fo r B re c h t, “ ⌧e u se o f Einfühlung e x iste d o n ly fo r bourgeois entertainm ent: it encom passed an experience of psychological and em otional id e n ti$cation that encouraged spectators to lose control of their ow n identities and prevent[ed] the possibility of critical thought.”29 F o r B re c h t, a s fo r L u X u n , a n a e sth e tic s based on em pathy, here coded in passive, “serene” term s, created the necessary conditions for

26 “⌧e Lim its of Em pathy” in ✏e Art Bulletin v. 8 8 , n o . 1 (M a r. 2 0 0 6 ), p . 1 5 2 .

27 Ib id .

28 In Brecht on ✏eater: ✏e Development of an Aesthetic (N e w Y o rk : H ill a n d W a n g , 1 9 6 4 ) 91-99.

29 Koss 152.

112 political fascism .30

But is “passive spectatorship” a fair characterization of Zhu’s aesthetics? Vischer’s original theory of Einfühlung in v o lv e d , a g a in in K o ss’s w o rd s, a “p o te n tia lly u n c o m fo rta b le destabilization of identity,”31 o n e n o le ss su g g e ste d b y Z h u ’s c h a ra c te ristic fo rm u la tio n s,

“u n ity of self an d oth er” wu wo tongyi 物我同一 and “forgetting of self and other” wu wo lia n g w a n g 物我兩忘. ⌧o u g h Z h u ’s w o rk p re a c h e s K a n tia n d isin te re st, a te n a n t a sso c ia te d by Zhu with Edw ard Bullough’s work on “psychological distance,” Zhu applies the psychological theories with which he was fam iliar to create a model of aesthetic experience not where a constitutive subject intuits objective form s unidirectionally, but where subject and object are essentially–physically, physiologically, formally–similar, allowing them to unite in a mom ent of intense contem plation. In particular, Zhu develops this model of aesthetic experience w ith respect to rhythm , a property not only of m usic and poetry, but dance and even painting or architecture. ⌧e assum ption that a hum an subject is able to em pathize w ith abstract m aterial form s creates the basis for Z hu’s theory of rhythm in lite ra tu re .

Rhythm had long been a special concern of Zhu’s, and the seeds of his critique of new poetry’s musicality go back to his early works of aesthetic philosophy. Our discussion below will trace Zhu’s approach to poetic form through his elaboration of three key versions

30 Iro n ically, L u X u n h ad an en tirely d i9eren t reactio n to M ei L an fan g, th e in sp iratio n fo r B rech t’s th eo ry o f alienation. See his essays “A Bit on M ei Lanfang et C etera” 略論梅蘭芳及其他 and “O n Photography and ⌧ings” 論照相之類.

31 Koss 152.

113 of the dialectic of subject and object (“the unity of self and other”): psychological distance, em pathy, and $nally rhythm . Z hu’s untim ely insertion of the national into his critique of new poetry, which we saw above, actually dram atizes a consistent am bivalence on his part between the universal and the particular, the intuitive and the mediated. ⌧roughout Zhu’s work on aesthetics, we can see a tendency to universalize apperception, through recourse to psychological or physiological factors (Nietzsche, Zhu points out, referred to aesthetics as

“ap p lied p h ysiology”32). H o w ever, w h en co n fro n ted w ith e9o rts to ascrib e stab le, u n iversal meanings to the minimally signi$cant elements of a work of art, Zhu turns toward a kind of reading we wish to call “musical”–where all-or-nothing categories are rejected, and a work is to be treated as an organic w hole w ith an in$n ite n u m b er o f p ertin en t relatio n s. ⌧is direction leads Zhu to posit an identity of form and content, where meaning is neither prior nor anterior to the words that express it. ⌧e result is an aesthetic theory where the di9erences between di9erent cultural traditions are not absolute, due to the fundam ental psychological similarity of all hum ans. Zhu’s view of literary history thus forecloses the possibility or desirability of radical change at the sam e time as it opens the door for gradual tran sfo rm atio n an d a C h in ese m o d ern ity b ased o n salu tary cu ltu ral co n tact an d ren o vatio n .

Zhu Guangqian’s principle works on aesthetics pre-1949–including ✏e Psychology of Literature and Art, Shi lun 詩論, a n d v a rio u s a rtic le s c o lle c te d in th e v o lu m e On Literature

(Tan wenxue 談文學)–are broad and ambitious, but also seriously plagued by internal

32 Wenyi xinlixue in Zhu Guangqian quan ji (H e fe i: A n h u i jia o y u c h u b a n sh e , 1 9 8 7 ) 1 .2 5 2 .

114 contradictions and an overall lack of coherence. Z hu w as a fervent adm irer of W estern scien ce an d th o u gh t, esp ecially p sych o lo gy, b u t also d eep ly train ed in trad itio n al C h in ese texts. A s a resu lt, h e o ften attem p ts to reco n cile id eas fro m rad ically in co m p atib le so u rces without fully exploring the implications of such juxtapositions, and it is often possible to

$nd conIicting passages from di9erent points in Zhu’s work, or even within one text. Given the great num ber of thinkers and schools synthesized into Z hu’s thought, one highly doubts th e p o ssib ility o f co n stru ctin g a fu lly co h eren t aesth etics o u t o f an y o f th ese w o rk s, an d th is discussion of Zhu’s approach to poetics will necessarily rem ain partial and fragm entary.

Rhythm and Musical Reading

Zhu liked to remind his readers that poetry and music were not fully distinct, that music, poetry, and dance shared a common origin, an idea for which he $nds evidence variously in the G reek tradition, the Book of Odes, a n d c o n te m p o ra ry e th n o g ra p h ic research .33 ⌧e th re e a rts d iv e rg e d a s e a c h d e v e lo p e d a h ig h e r-o rd e r sig n ify in g c a p a b ility : melody in music, gesture in dance, and in poetry, meaning.34 Yet rhythm does m ore than just unify the perform ing arts; for Zhu, rhythm is the com m on feature that uni$es the the body, th e p sych e, th e w o rk o f art, an d th e n atu ral w o rld .

Rhythm is a basic rule of natural phenomena in the universe. Natural phenomena cannot be always the same or always di9erent–if they were, there would be no rhythm. Rhythm is

33 “C ong yanjiu geyao hou w o duiyu shi de xingshi w enti yijian de bianqian” 從研究歌謠後我對於詩的形 式問題意見的變遷 in in Zhu Guangqian quan ji (H e fe i: A n h u i jia o y u c h u b a n sh e , 1 9 8 7 ), 8 :4 1 4 , Shi lun 7- 11, 1 2 2 , e tc .

34 “C ong yanjiu geyao hou w o duiyu shi de xingshi w enti yijian de bianqian” 414.

115 born from the succession, the intersection, the dialogue of identity and di9erence. ⌧e passage of winter to sum m er, of day to night; the replacem ent of old by new; the mating of male and female; the rise and fall of wind and waves; the criss-crossing of mountains by rivers; th e m u ltip licatio n , d ivisio n , ad d itio n , an d su b tractio n o f q u an tities; even th e co n trast of positive and negative m ystical principles, the historical cycles of rise and fall or prosperity and decline–all of these have a logic of rhythm within them.

節奏是宇宙中自然現象的一個基本原則。自然現象彼此不能全同，亦不能全異。全 同 全異不能有節奏，節奏生於同異相承續，相錯綜，相呼應。寒暑晝夜的來往，新陳 的代謝，雌雄的匹偶，風波的起伏，山川的交錯，數量的乘除消長，以致於玄理方 面反正的對稱，歷史方面興亡隆替的循環，都有一個節奏的道理在裡面.35

While this passage recalls Guo Moruo’s mystical e9usions about merging with the natural world, Zhu attempts through his understanding of rhythm to make serious philosophical claim s about the nature of art. Z hu argues that rhythm in art arises because art im itates nature, but he is not speaking of representation–he means, rather, that each artform relies on the alternation of distinctive features (to borrow a Structuralist phrase) in tim e or space to produce its em otional impact. In painting, for instance, there is a “rhythm ic” alternation of deep and pale colors, close and distant lines, light and dark, and so on. In time-based arts like poetry, music, and dance, it is high and low, long and short, fast and slow.36 ⌧e su b je c t’s mind is also ordered according rhythmic cycles of respiration and circulation, tension and relaxatio n , atten tio n an d in atten tio n , so th e act o f ap p reh en sio n is an in teractio n o f extern al and internal rhythm s. “W hen w e perceive external objects, it requires the fullness and concentration of our energy and attention, so w e usually unconsciously seek to harm onize th e rh y th m s o f o u r m in d an d th e n atu ral w o rld ” 我們知覺外物時需要精力與注意力的飽

35 Shi lun 124.

36 Ib id .

116 滿凝聚，所以常不知不覺地希求自然界的節奏和內心的節奏相應和.37 ⌧e in te ra c tio n between these structures of alternation in the work of art and the similar structures in the su b ject’s m in d create th e p o ssib ility o f artistic m ean in g w h ich is n o t lin gu istic o r rep resen tatio n al, b u t p u rely d u e to fo rm al p ro p erties.

Yet Zhu insists that rhythm is not an objective property, either of the outside world or the internal consciousness. ⌧ere is interaction in both directions: the m ind takes an active ro le in its p ercep tio n o f extern al rh yth m s, su ch th at an id en tical p attern p erceived at d i9eren t moments or by di9erent individuals will have a di9erent e9ect on the listener’s mind.

For instance, the sounds produced by the gears of a clock are uniform and monotonous on th eir o w n , w ith o u t an y d istin ctio n s o f h ig h an d lo w o r risin g an d fallin g . B u t w h en w e h ear th em , w e feel th at so m e are lo u d er o r so fter, lo n g er o r sh o rter. ⌧is is n atu ral, b ecau se th e breath and circulation rise and fall, the energy ebbs and Iow s, the attention focuses and dissipates, so that the sam e sound will seem louder when the attention is engaged and softer when the attention is lax. So as a uniform, monotonous sound continues on, the listener can still h ear a p attern ed rh yth m .

比如鐘錶機輪所作的聲響本是單調一律，沒有高低起伏，我們聽起來，卻覺得它輕 重長短相間。這是很自然的，呼吸、循環有起伏，精力有張弛，注意力有緊鬆，同一 聲音在注意力緊張時便顯得重，在注意力鬆懈時便顯得輕，所以單調一律的聲音繼 續響下去，可以使聽者聽到有規律的節奏.38

In o th er w o rd s, th e w ay th e su b ject p erceives extern al p h en o m en a can n o t b e o b jectively corroborated; there is a purely subjective com ponent to the perception of objective phenom ena. M oving in the opposite direction, external rhythm s have a clear inIuence over the subject’s physiology an d psychology, based on the psychological aesthetic prin ciple of

“inner im itation.” In Shi lun, Z h u e x p la in s th e p rin c ip le a s fo llo w s:

37 Ib id .

38 Ib id . 1 2 4 .

117 ⌧e emotional qualities of poetry and music arise from this possibility [of external rhythms in Iuencing our internal rhythm s]. O rganism s are extrem ely good at adapting to their environm ent, and im itation is a very prim itive instinct in anim als. Seeing others laugh, w e also laugh along w ith them ; seeing others kick a ball, our ow n legs and feet also tw itch; seeing a m ountain, w e unconsciously pu9 o u t o u r ch ests an d lift o u r h ead s; seein g a w illo w sw ay gracefu lly, w e u n co n scio u sly b eco m e relaxed an d at ease. ... S p eak in g o n ly in term s o f th e rh yth m o f a so u n d , th ere are o n ly altern atio n s o f lo n g an d sh o rt, h ig h an d lo w , so ft an d loud, fast and slow . A s these relations continually change, the m ental e9ort expended and the mental and physical activity employed by the listener also change. So in the listener’s mind, a parallelism occurs between the rhythm s of the mind and the rhythm of the sound.

詩與音樂的感動性就是從這種改變的可能起來的。有機體本來最善於適應環境，而 模倣又是動物的一種很原始的本能。看見旁人發笑，自己也隨之發笑；看見旁人踢 球，自己的腿腳也隨之躍躍欲動；看見山時我們不知不覺地挺胸昂首；看見楊柳輕 盈搖蕩時，我們也不知不覺輕鬆舒暢起來。⋯單就聲音的節奏來說，它是長短、高低、 輕重、疾徐相繼承的關係。這 些關係時時變化，聽者所費的心力和所用的身心的活動 也隨之變化。因此，聽者心中自發生一種節奏和聲音的節奏相平行.39

In n er im itatio n is th e to p ic o f th e fo u rth ch ap ter o f Psychology of Literature and Art, w h e re it is also closely related to the em pathic function. B oth provide m odels of subject/object interaction w hich are relevant to the aesthetic experience. In m om ents of intense contem plation, the subject and the object fuse, such that, on the one hand, the subject’s feelings or em otions are projected onto the object via em pathy, but on the other hand, properties of the object are experienced by the subject via internal imitation. “W e can say that the em pathic function spoken of by L ipps em phasizes the direction leading from subject to o b ject, w h ile G ro o s’s in tern al im itatio n em p h asizes th e d irectio n fro m o b ject to su b ject”

我們可以說，立普斯所說的‘移情作用’偏重由我及物的一方面，谷魯斯所說的‘

內模仿’偏重由物及我的一方面.40 Z h u d o e s n o t se e a d istin c tio n b e tw e e n fe e lin g th e urge to laugh upon seeing others laugh and imagining that a willow tree is “relaxed and at

39 Ib id . 1 2 5 .

40 Wenyi xinlixue 2 5 7 .

118 ease” upon seeing it sw ay, and then feeling that em otion oneself; the di9erence betw een rep resen tin g an d b ein g is n o t relevan t, p erh ap s sin ce b o th are p ro d u ced in th e m in d o f th e su b ject. ⌧u s Z h u is ab le to acco u n t fo r th e aesth etic ap p reh en sio n o f fo rm al relatio n sh ip s in term s o f em p ath y :

We don’t know what a mouse feels like when it is chased by a cat, but we remember when we were ourselves placed in a perilous situation; we don’t know the di9erence between a line stan d in g straigh t u p o r lyin g o n its sid e, b u t w e rem em b er th e d istin ctio n b etw een tim es when we were standing up or lying down. Measuring the world on the basis of ourselves, we can im agine the terror of a m ouse chased by a cat, and in the sam e w ay, w e can im agine that when a line is standing up straight it is as tense as we are when we stand up, when it lies on its side it is as relaxed an d at ease as w e are w h en w e are reclin in g. ⌧is is th e sa m e re a so n w e feel th at a sto n e p illar su rg es u p , resistin g w ith all its m ig h t.

我們不知道鼠被貓追捕時的情感，但是記得起自己處危境的恐懼；我們不知道一條 線在直立着和橫排着的時候有什麼不同，但是記得起自己在站着和臥着時的分別。 以己測物，我們想像到想像到鼠被追的恐懼；同理，我們也想像線在直立時和我們 站着時一樣緊張，在橫排時和我們臥着時一樣弛懈安閒。我們覺得石柱聳立上騰， 出力抵抗，也是因為這個道理.41

We attribute meaning to a formal abstraction such as a vertical or horizontal line in architecture or painting based on the sam e principle that allow s us to know that a m ouse is afraid. Z hu di9ers from detractors w ho m aintain that w e cannot em pathize w ith inanim ate th in g s b y arg u in g th at an yo n e fam iliar w ith co n tem p o rary exp erim en tal art w o u ld k n o w th at

“all th in gs, in clu d in g co lors an d lin es, can p ro d u ce em p ath ic e9ects” 一切事物，連顏色、

線形等等在內，都可以起移情作用.42

What, then, accounts for the pleasure derived from music, poetry, or other rhythmic phenom ena? Zhu has already touched upon the answer: the subject seeks a kind of

41 Ib id . 2 4 4 .

42 Ib id . 2 4 8 .

119 correspondence betw een his internal, physiological rhythm s and the external rhythm s he perceives. Zhu develops the concepts of consonance and dissonance (xie 諧 and ao 拗) to explain this relationship.43

⌧e ideal rhythm must meet the natural requirements of [the listener’s] physiology and psychology. ⌧at is, it must accord with the limits of muscle tension, the cycles of rise and fall in atten tion , an d th e expectation of satisfaction an d su rprise. ⌧e distinction betw een what I call “consonant” and “dissonant” arises from this criterion. If the rhythm of changes in th e state o f th in g s is p arallel an d co n sisten t w ith th e in tern al rh yth m o f th e m in d an d b o d y so the psyche can avoid perform ing any unnatural e9o rt, an d o n e feels p leased , th en th is is consonant. O therw ise it is dissonant.

理想的節奏須能適合生理、心理的自然需要，這就是說，適合於筋肉張弛的限度， 注意力鬆緊的起伏回環，以及預期所應有的滿足與驚訝，所謂“諧”和“拗”的分 別就是從這個條件起來的。如果物態的起伏節奏與身心內在的節奏相平行一致，則 心理方面可以免去不自然的努力，感覺得愉快，就是“諧”，否則便是“拗”.44

⌧ough the consonance/dissonance binary is slightly crude on its own, it can explain much more complex qualitative e9ects in an actual piece of music. Zhu’s most important so u rce o n th e su b ject o f rh yth m ap p ears to b e ⌧eo d o re L ip p s, w h o se Consonance and

Dissonance in Music e x p la in s th e p e rc e p tu a l p h e n o m e n a o f c o n so n a n c e a n d d isso n a n c e in term s o f “to n e-rh y th m ,” th at is, th e rh y th m o f vib ratio n s in a g iven p erio d o f tim e, rath er th an freq u en cy ratio s.45 W hat is notable about L ipps’s theory of consonance is that he adopts

43 ⌧ese translations are based on a mixed metaphor that may invite confusion. “Consonant” and “dissonant” refer m o st co m m o n ly to h arm o n y (co m b in atio n s o f p itch es), rath er th an rh yth m , an d are ren d ered in Chinese hexie yin 和諧音 and bu hexie yin 不和諧音. M u sic o lo g ists d o sp e a k o f rh y th m ic o r m e tric a l dissonance, and the concepts are related: harm onic dissonance involves the non-alignm ent of the vibrations that produce pitch; in rhythm ic dissonance, the non-alignm ent takes place on the larger scale of rhythm . See ⌧om as Street Christensen, ✏e Cambridge History of Western Music (C a m b rid g e , U .K .: C a m b rid g e University Press, 2002): 708.

44 Shi lun 1 2 6 -7 .

45 Lipps does not contest that the perception of pitch and consonance depends on the mathem atical ratio of frequencies in the vibrations of physical m edia, but he em ploys the notion of tone-rhythm to help explain the fact that consonance and dissonance are phenom ena of the consciousness, w hile the ratio of frequencies

120 the term inology of rhythm to explain perceptual phenom ena not ordinarily described in those term s, so that the principles of consonance and dissonance are scalable to di9eren t ty p es o f m u sical stru ctu res. “⌧e single com pound tone represents in a certain sense the larger m usical w hole. It’s a rhythm ic system built up from a fundam ental rhythm . ⌧is rh yth m is m o re o r less rich ly d i9eren tiated in th e rh yth m o f each o f its p itch es. E very musical whole also is such a rhythmic system, whether presented in a moment or projected over tim e.”46

⌧us the de$nition of rhythm adopted by Zhu has great potential explanatory power for m usical aesth etics as a w h ole. For on e th in g, like rh yth m , pitch is also th e perceived e9ect of events happening regularly in tim e (vibrations of faster or slow er frequency) which m ay, when they occur simultaneously or in sequence, seem more or less dissonant, depending on th e reg u larity w ith w h ich th e w avefo rm s o verlap . E ach in terval is a u n iq u e ratio o f frequencies, and therefore occupies a unique place on the spectrum of dissonance; each harm ony or chord is thus also a unique mathem atical relationship of frequencies, so we have a clear basis for discussing tension and resolution. Further qualities of expression (crescendo and decrescendo, trem olo or vibrato, phrasing, changes in tem po) or tim bre could sim ilarly be imagined as changes over time (“dynamics”)–for Zhu Guangqian, these would also be rh yth m ic. E ven th e large stru ctu re o f a p iece o f m u sic, w h ich gen erally in vo lves rep etitio n s

occurs in the physical world. See ⌧eodor Lipps, Consonance and Dissonance in Music, tra n s. W illia m ⌧omson (San Marino, California: Everett Books, 1995).

46 Lipps 93.

121 and variations, antecedent and consequent phrases or passages, ful$lls Z hu’s basic de$nition of rhythm . If the em otional e9ects of these various rhythm ic con$gurations on the psyche could be know n, the subjective em otional content of a piece of m usic could, in fact, be predicted simply from a knowledge of the abstract structures of the piece–at least, within th e lim its o f variatio n am o n g d i9eren t su b jective p ercep tio n s o f rh y th m .

Zhu suggests as much, though without being so bold as to assign speci$c meanings to sp eci$c m u sical featu res. “W h en th e em o tio n s stir, vario u s fu n ctio n s o f th e circu lato ry system are d istu rb ed ; th e ten sin g o f m u scles an d fo cu s o f th e atten tio n ch an ge fro m th eir usual states, and their rhythm s, which had also been as usual, change along with them . In other words, each em otion has its special rhythm ” 情緒一發動，呼吸、循環種種作用受擾

動，筋肉的伸縮和注意力的張弛就突然改變常態，原來常態的節奏自然亦隨之改變。

換句話說，每種情緒都有它的特殊節奏.47 F o r c o m p a riso n , Z h u p ro v id e s a fa m o u s passage from the Record of Music 樂記, c o m p a rin g it in p a ssin g to S c h o p e n h a u e r’s

“o b jecti$cation of w ill”:

When the mind is moved to sorrow, the sound is sharp and fading away; when it is moved to pleasure, the sound is slow and gentle; when it is moved to joy, the sound is exclam atory and so o n d isap p ears; w h en it is m o ved to an ger, th e so u n d is co arse an d $erce; w h en it is m o ved to reveren ce, th e so u n d is straig h tfo rw ard , w ith an in d icatio n o f h u m ility; w h en it is m o ved to lo ve, th e so u n d is h arm o n io u s an d so ft. ⌧ese six [kin ds of soun d] are n ot this w ay by their natures; the sounds m ust be perceived before the feelings are produced.

其哀心感者其聲 以殺，其樂心感者其聲嘽以緩，其喜心感者其聲發以散，其怒 心感者其聲粗以厲，其敬心感者其聲直以廉，其愛心感者其聲和以柔。六者非性也， 感於物而後動。48

47 Shi lun 1 2 9 .

48 Quoted in ibid. 128; the translation is based on Legge’s. Zhu also mentions this passage in connection with

122 Yet how to de$ne these rhythm s and the em otions that relate to them is no easy task. Zhu mentions the ancient Greeks’ association of the various keys to emotional qualities–e.g. the key of B is mournful, the key of F is lascivious, etc.–but says these associations would need to b e veri$ed exp erim en tally.49 In Psychology of Literature and Art, Z h u re p ro d u c e s th e re su lts of studies by a certain E. Pow er, who assigned em otional descriptions to som e of the com m on m ajor and m inor keys:50

C major: a mood of pure determination; purity, resolution, steadfastness, religious fervor. G major: sincere faith, quiet love, a pastoral Iavor; carries a certain playfulness, most beloved by young people. G minor: at times sorrowful, at times jubilant. A major: con$dence, hope, pleasantness, best suited for expressing sincere feeling. A minor: feminine gentleness; the pain and reverence of Scandinavian peoples. B major: seldom used, but extremely clear and bright; expresses bravery, spirit, pride. B minor: very mournful, expresses tranquil expectation. F-sharp major: extrem ely bright, gentle, full. F-sharp minor: secrecy, mystery, enthusiasm. A-Iat major: the feeling of being in a dream. F major: pleasantness but with a touch of regret; suitable for expressing religious feeling. F minor: grief.

C陽調 純粹堅決的情調，純潔，果斷，沈毅，宗教熱。 G陽調 真摯的信仰，平靜的愛情，田園風味，帶有若干諧趣，為少年所最愛聽。 G陰調 有時憂愁，有時欣喜。 A陽調 自信，希望，和悅，最能表現真摯的情感。 A陰調 女子的柔情，北歐民族的傷感和虔敬心。 B陽調 用時甚少，極瞭亮，表現勇敢豪爽驕傲。 B陰調 調甚悲哀，表現恬靜的期望。 F提高陽調 極瞭亮，柔和，豐富。

Schopenhauer in Psychology of Literature and Art 3 0 1 .

49 Shi lun 1 2 9 .

50 Zhu does not explain whether the qualities given were determined through the prompting of experimental su b jects o r ju st th ro u gh P o w er’s su b jective evalu atio n s. I h ave n o t yet b een ab le to d eterm in e P o w er’s id e n tity.

123 F提高陰調 陰沈，神祕，熱情。 A降低陽調 夢境的情感。 F陽調 和悅，微帶悔悼，宜於表現宗教的情感。 F陰調 悲愁.51

⌧is kind of exercise may be familiar to musical practitioners, even those who lack perfect pitch; it is com m on to look for som e absolute points of reference in an otherwise sym m etrical an d tran sp o sab le system . ⌧e fact th at so m e p lau sib le d escrip tio n s (“fem in in e gentleness”) appear alongside m uch m ore speci$c ones (“the pain and reverence of

Scandinavian peoples”) suggests the di6culty of this kind of research. Zhu further refers to an Italian study cited by M ax Schoen (1888-1959) w hich deals w ith relative values, the intervals betw een pairs of notes.52

Minor second: melancholy, mourning, resignation, anxiety, worry. Major second: somewhat cheerier than the minor second, but still with a serious air. Minor third: melancholy, bitterness, restlessness; some feel that it expresses tranquility, contentm ent, and religious fervor. Major third: joy, color, bravery, resolution, con$dence, glory. Fourth: fullness, joy, color, strength, glory, but with sadness mixed in. Fifth: responses are many, but usually tranquility and joy, with sadness mixed in. Sixth:53 p e a c e , stre n g th , b ra v e ry, v ic to ry. Minor sixth: usually serenity. Major sixth: usually expresses contentment, tenderness, and hope, with sadness mixed in. Seventh: restlessness, discontent, surprise, illusion. Minor seventh: discord, worry. Major seventh: discord, worry, though perhaps with some hope or faith. Octave: perfection, achievement, perhaps with welcome, anxiety, or mourning.

51 Wenyi xinlixue 5 0 7 .

52 For an overview of Schoen and his work on the aesthetics and psychology of music, see W illiam R. Lee, “M ax Schoen and H is W ork in M usic” in ✏e Bulletin of Historical Research in Music Education, V o l. 1 8 , N o . 2 (Jan., 1997), pp. 85-105.

53 It seem s th at th e en tries fo r “sixth ” an d “seven th ” are m ean t to ap p ly to b o th th e m in o r an d m ajo r q u alities of the interval. ⌧e dissonant “tritone” or dim inished $fth is missing from the table.

124 短二階 悲傷，痛悼，退讓，焦躁，疑慮。 長二階 較短二階稍愉快，仍帶嚴肅氣。 短三階 悲傷，愁苦，騷動，有人以為它表示平靜，滿意，及宗教熱。 長三階 欣喜，顏色，勇敢，果決，自信，發揚。 四階 滿足，欣喜，顏色，力量，發揚，間帶傷感。 五階 反應甚多，通常為平靜，欣喜，間帶傷感。 六階 和悅，力量，勇敢，勝利。 短六階 通常是靜穆。 長六階 通常表示滿意，柔情，希望，間帶傷感。 七階 騷動，不滿意，驚訝，幻覺。 短七階 不和諧，疑慮。 長七階 不和諧，疑慮，間或表示希望，信仰。 八階 完美，成就，間或表現招邀，焦躁，或哀悼.54

Once again we see the di6culty: the same or similar descriptive terms apply to intervals which sound nothing alike, while calling upon us to imagine a sound that is “tender” and

“hopeful” but “w ith sadness m ixed in” suggests that these linguistic descriptions m ay not, in fact, capture the feelin g of m usic adequately. ⌧is rudim entary e9ort to de$n e th e q u alities o f th e d i9erent intervals appears to be a forerunner of D eryck C ook’s notorious ✏e Language of

Music (O xfo rd : O xfo rd U n iversity P ress, 1 9 5 9 ), w h ich p ro vid es a lexico n o f m u sical m o tifs tran slated in to lin g u istic d escrip tio n s, b u t w h ich relies o n ah isto rical, n atu ralistic b ases fo r its in te rp re ta tio n s.

In all th ese cases, an e9o rt h as b een m ad e to $n d th e m in im ally sign i$can t elem en ts of m usic, by analogy to the m orphem e in m odern linguistics. Zhu, how ever, rejects this method on principle.

As we see from [Power’s] table, although each interval produces a distinct impression, they have no $xed standard. ⌧e second and seventh are dissonant intervals, so their impression is very clear, but the others, like the $fth, fourth, or m ajor third, produce very im precise

54 Wenyi xinlixue 5 0 8 -9 .

125 im p re ssio n s. ⌧e im pressions produced by m usic should be studied w ith respect to the w hole work.

從這個表看，音階雖各有特殊的影響，而卻沒有定準。二階七階本來是兩種嘈雜的 音階（dissonances），所以影響很明顯，其餘如五階，四階，長三階等所生的影響 並不確定。音樂的影響應從整個樂調研究.55

Zhu’s dissatisfaction with the study stems from his refusal to adopt an analytical approach with respect to the work of art. On the one hand, we could interpret this tendency as a characteristically Beijing School respect for the integrity of the w ork of art and insistence to treat it o n ly as a w h o le; F an g B ao , o f th e T o n g ch en g S ch o o l, sim ilarly refu sed to excerp t longer w orks for his prose anthologies because they w ere “com plete in them selves, w ith a beginning and an end; they cannot be cut up and divided.”56 O n th e o th e r h a n d , th o u g h ,

Zhu is consistently concerned with the continuous, rather than discrete, qualities of art; he ju sti$e s th is b ia s b y p o in tin g o u t th a t n o re la tio n (m e lo d ic in te rv a l, d i9e re n c e in lin g u istic stress, etc.) exists in iso latio n , an d th at th e co n text th at d eterm in es its m ean in g is h igh ly com plex. Put this w ay, Z hu sounds m ore like tw entieth century m usicologist C élestin

Deliège, who asserts that meaning in the musical work is produced by countless interrelations: “T o de$ne the m eaning of a m usical w ork is an insurm ountable task: every relation is pertin en t a n d th e p o ssib le n u m b e r is p ro b a b ly in $n ite .” 57 ⌧o u g h th e re a re tim e s when Zhu’s approach to the study of poetry seems woefully insu6cient to cope with

55 Ib id . 5 0 9 .

56 See ⌧eodor H uters, “From W riting to Literature: ⌧e Developm ent of Late Q ing ⌧eories of Prose” in Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 4 7 .1 (Ju n . 1 9 8 7 ), 6 9 .

57 Quoted in Raymond Monelle, Linguistics and Semiotics in Music (C h u r, S w itze rla n d : H a rw o o d , 1 9 9 2 ) 1 4 .

126 linguistic phenom ena w hich are, by now , w ell understood, his apparent blindness to the

Structuralist concepts of distinctive features or pertinence, concepts which he him self frequen tly gestures tow ards, is sim ultan eously w hat allow s him to treat poetry less as language and m ore as som ething approaching m usic.

A case in point is Zhu’s discussion of “tone” in poetry in chapter eight of Shi lun. In th is ch ap ter an d th e tw o th at fo llo w , Z h u attem p ts to d escrib e th e q u alities th at p ro d u ce meter in Chinese: by analogy to Western classical meters, he discusses length (quantity); by analogy to m eters in G erm anic languages, he discusses stress; and based on his understanding of traditional Chinese m eters, he discusses tone. Tone (sh en g 聲), “th e d istin ctive p itch level of a syllable,”58 h a s b e e n a p e rtin e n t c a te g o ry o f C h in e se v e rsi$c a tio n sin c e a t le a st th e S ix

Dynasties period, when Shen Yue 沈約 (4 4 1 -5 1 3 ) id en ti$ed four tonal categories and argued for their im portance to poetry.59 W e can know w hich of the four m iddle C hinese tonal categories (ping 平 “le v e l” , sh a n g 上 “risin g”, qu 去 “departing”, ru 入 “entering”) words belonged to historically, and their tones in the modern Chinese languages have evolved predictably from those categories; how ever, the actual pitches and contours of Chinese words read alo u d seem to h ave varied w id ely fro m tim e to tim e an d p lace to p lace. ⌧o u gh th e nam es of the tones (“level” and “rising”) seem to provide som e hints to how they sounded, at least at on e tim e an d place, they are n ot exactly satisfyin g description s (“departin g”,

58 David Crystal, A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics (C a m b rid g e , M a ss.: B la c k w e ll, 1 9 9 1 ).

59 Even earlier than Shen Yue, rhym ing syllables consistently belong to the sam e tonal category, but Shen rep resen ts th e earliest aw aren ess o f to n e as a p ro p erty o f C h in ese.

127 “en terin g”). Z h u cites so m e qu alitative description s of th e to n es in an attem p t to un d erstan d th eir p h o n o lo g ical d i9eren ces. F ro m th e n in th -cen tu ry Yuanhe Rhym e Schem e 元和韻譜,

⌧e level tone rests sorrowfully; the rising tone lifts $ercely; the departing tone goes o9 distinctly; the entering tone hurries on directly.

平聲者哀而安，上聲者厲而舉，去聲者清而遠，入聲者直而促.60

Such a description is rem arkably sim ilar to the passage Zhu has cited from the Record of

Music and is quite possibly based on that passage; several of the sam e w ords appear in both

(“so rro w fu l” 哀, “ $e rc e” 厲, “stra ig h tfo rw a rd ” /“d ire c t” 直). A lth o u g h Z h u is o sten sib ly investigating the actual phonetic properties of the four tones, w e have no trouble seeing the im p lic a tio n s: to n e , in p o e try a s in m u sic , is a fo rm a l p ro p e rty w h ic h c re a te s a n e m o tio n a l reactio n in its listen er.

⌧e Iaw in Zhu’s analysis is that he fails to address the pertinence of the qualities at hand, so he will, for instance, discuss the length of syllables in a soliloquy from Hamlet e v e n after he has noted that English m eters are based on stress. Scanning the line, “T o be or not to be: that is the question,” Zhu says it “uses iam bic [qingzhong 輕重, lite ra lly “u n stre sse d stressed ”] p en tam eter w ith an extra syllab le in th e $fth fo o t. ⌧e stressed syllab les in th e $rst and third foot are also long syllables, and thus are read as longer than the second and fourth feet, but E nglish verse does not fully count the distinction betw een long and short” 是用輕

重五步格，第五步多一音，第一步、第三步的重音同時是長音，在讀時比第二、第四

60 Quoted in Shi lun 1 6 2 .

128 音兩音步都較長，但英文詩並不十分計較這種長短的分別.61 If stre ss is th e b a sis fo r division into feet, then length should not enter into the discussion; modern linguistics would not recognize a quali$cation like “not fully.” Zhu makes the sam e error in his discussion of to n e in C h in ese, w h ere h e attem p ts to d iscu ss th e q u alities o f d u ratio n an d stress p ro p er to the four tones of C hinese, even after he has cited w orks by L iu Fu 劉復 (1 8 9 1 -1 9 3 4 ) an d

Zhao Yuanren 趙元任 (1892-1982) w hich dem onstrate that the tones are distinguished on the basis of pitch con tours, an d even after he him self has w arn ed that he actual values of the to n es d i9er w idely over tim e an d geographical space. W e are certain ly n ot surprised to see a

Chinese intellectual of this period importing categories (such as stress and length) from

Western languages into a discussion of Chinese, but Zhu’s most eccentric moment comes when he goes in the opposite direction.

Most people think that the four tones are a phenomenon of Chinese languages, but this view is not com pletely correct. For instance, E nglish vow els w hen long are rising tone; long e, i, o, and u are departing tone; short e, i, and u are entering tone. N o vow el is level tone on its ow n, but when it is put with nasals (w, n),62 if it is n o t a stre sse d sy lla b le , it fre q u e n tly becom es dark level.63 F o r in sta n c e , th e ‘p h e n ’ in S te p h e n , th e ‘d o n ’ in L o n d o n , o r th e ‘to m ’ in phantom .

一般人以為四聲是中國語言的特殊現象。這 種見解不完全是對的。比如說英文母音， 長音就是上聲，e、i、o、u長音都是去聲，e、i、u短音都是入聲。獨立的母音沒有平聲， 但是母音與鼻音(w 、n)相拼時，如果不是重音，往往讀成陰平，例如 step h en 之 phen

61 Shi lun 157.

62 No actual phonetic value of ‘w’ is nasal (biyin 鼻音). P erh ap s h e is search in g fo r a w ay to d escrib e th o se so u n d s w h ich are n o t o b stru en ts (in w h ich th e airIo w is o b stru cted ) b u t w h ich are also n o t fu ll vo w els (w h ich are syllab ic).

63 In m an y C h in ese d ialects, o n e o r m o re o f th e to n es o f M id d le C h in ese h ave sp lit in tw o , th e “d ark” yin 陰 and “bright” yan g 陽; th o se sy lla b le s b e g in n in g w ith u n v o ic e d c o n so n a n ts a re “d a rk ” w h ile th o se b e g in n in g with voiced consonants or vowels are “bright.”

129 音，lo n d o n 之 don 音，phantom 之 to m 音.64

On the surface, this is a laughably misguided passage. ⌧e word phantom does not change in any lexically or gram m atically signi$cant w ay if its second syllable is read in level tone, rising tone, departing tone, or any other tone, nor w ould a scansion of existing E nglish verse in term s of C hinese tones yield any m eaningful pattern.65 ⌧e c a te g o rie s Z h u h a s a tte m p te d to im p o rt a re sim p ly n o t p e rtin e n t. E v e n if Shi lun p re d a te s th e C h o m sk ia n d istin c tio n b e tw e e n deep and surface structure, a com m on-sense fam iliarity with English poetry would have led most researchers to reject a discussion of tone out of hand. Yet let us remember Deliège’s assertion: in m usic, every relation is pertin en t. If o n e w e re a tte m p tin g to d e sc rib e a n u tte ra n c e as accurately as possible, he w ould not need to distinguish betw een surface features and deep structures–to describe objectively the way a recitation of Hamlet’s soliloquy sounds would necessarily be to include questions of pitch, tem po, and volum e that do not ordinarily enter into discussions of linguistic or metrical structure–i.e. to produce an etic ra th e r th a n a n em ic d e sc rip tio n , th e w a y a p h o n o g ra p h w o u ld , ra th e r th a n a m u sic a l sc o re . ⌧e im p lic a tio n s of what we m ight call “m usical reading” is nothing less than a rejection of all-or-nothing categories.

64 Ib id . 1 6 7 .

65 A similarly surprising superimposition of Chinese categories onto English literature comes from Zhu’s brief history of regulated verse in chapters eleven and twelve of Shi lun (d isc u sse d m o re in th e c o n c lu sio n ): “W estern poets, as a rule, enjoy em bellishm ent m ore than C hinese poets. M any of their m id-length poem s are really just fu [賦]”–a genre of Chinese writing translated as rhapsody, rhymeprose, or poetic exposition. “G ray’s ‘Elegy W ritten in a C ountry C hurchyard,’ M ilton’s Paradise Lost a n d Il P en seroso, S h e lle y ’s “ O d e to th e W est W in d ,’ K eats’s ‘O d e to a N ig h tin g ale,’ an d H u g o ’s ‘C e q u 'o n en ten d su r la m o n tag n e’ an d ‘L ’e x p ia tio n ’ (Shi lun 194).

130 ⌧is rejection of all-or-nothing categories is anticipated in Zhu’s critique of Crocean aesthetics in chapter eleven of the 1936 version of Psychology of Literature and Art, a c h a p te r he added to the original during his time lecturing at Tsinghua. In critiquing Croce on the basis of value (which, in art, means beauty), Zhu rejects the claims that all art is absolutely beautiful and that only the beautiful can be art, claims which result, Zhu says, in an equation of the term s perception, expression, creation, appreciation, art, and beauty.66 F o r Z h u , a rt is to b e m easu red b y a sin g le criterio n , th at its fo rm reIect its co n ten t. ⌧is yo k in g o f fo rm an d content, how ever, is not the sim ple subordination of form to content that w e $nd in M ay

Fourth poetics, where the cliché that “form must reIect content” is repeated again and again.

Zhu explains the relationship of form and content as follows: “⌧e highest ideal for art is that its m atter (feeling or content) be m anifested in its w ords (im ages or form ) in the m ost appropriate w ay. But in reality, there is art w hose m atter overIow s from its w ords, and art whose words are richer than its matter” 藝術的最高理想自然是情（即情趣或內容）見

（即表現）於詞（即意象或形式），恰到好處。但是實際上有情趣溢於詞的，也有

詞富於情的.67 F o r Z h u , th e se th re e p o ssib ilitie s a lig n w ith H e g e l’s S y m b o lic , C la ssic a l, a n d

Romantic ages: in the $rst, form outstrips content, and in the last, content transcends form.

Zhu says Croce implies that only the Classical is true art, while Zhu wishes to establish a basis for judgm ent that could com pare di9erent works of art qualitatively.

Zhu Guangqian’s theory of rhythm and emotion in the arts has, to this point,

66 Wenyi xinlixue 3 6 6 .

67 Ib id . 3 6 6 -3 6 7 .

131 universalized aesthetic experience in order to elide questions of history or culture. Even animals–a favorite “naive” experimental subject in studies cited by Zhu, along with children and people belonging to “prim itive” cultures, w ho all presum ably exist outside of history– are said to evince em otional responses to m usical stim uli, according to experim ents conducted by M ax Schoen.68 In th e p a ssa g e s w e h a v e d isc u sse d so fa r, a b stra c t fo rm s o p e ra te gesturally, as icons relating to the m ovem ents of the hum an body and its physiological system s; feelin g an d lan gu age m u st b e co n sisten t, h e argu es. B u t Z h u can n o t ign o re th e possibility that art may also signify according to the arbitrary conventions of a particular cultural or historical context.

As we already explained in detail during our discussion of the origins of poetry, poetic forms bear the traces of poetry’s origin in song, music, and dance. ⌧ey adhere to tradition, rather than being created specially by each poet according to his m ood at a certain tim e. Poetry is not entirely free expression. . . . But doesn’t this contradict our claim that feeling, thought, and language are consistent?

我們在討論詩的起源時已經詳細說明過，詩的形式大半為歌、樂、舞同源的遺痕。它 是沿襲傳統的，不是每個詩人根據他的某一時會的意境所特創的。詩不全是自然流 露。... 這番話與上章情感思想語言一致說不互相衝突麼？69

Zhu’s solution to the conundrum posed is elegant: the reason why forms are not wholly original for each new work is that thought is also not wholly original. Poetic form , he argues, is like gram m ar, in that it is a w ay that a people are able to put the chaotic w orld in to order.

Just the w ay gram m ar does not change overnight, poetic form s are inherited and evolve slo w ly. ⌧e existen ce o f d ivergen t an d m u tu ally u n in telligib le cu ltu ral trad itio n s is o n ly d u e

68 Cited in both Shi lun 129 and Wenyi xinlixue 5 0 8 .

69 Shi lun 1 1 8 .

132 to historical accident; rhythm s are still rhythm s. H ere as in “W hat C an M odern Poetry L earn from C lassical Poetry?”, Z hu has asserted the im portan ce of social or historical con text in artistic production and reception w ithout fully abandoning his universalizing approach to hum an psychology.

⌧ere are hints as well that the rhythmical abstractions that constitute meter contain for Z hu a fundam entally di9erent order of m eaning from denotative language, w hich allow s th e tw o levels to b ear o n th e m ean in g o f th e p o em w ith o u t co n Iict. “R h y th m is an abstraction, not a concrete scenario, so it cannot produce concrete em otions, like the anger, fear, jealo u sy, o r h atred o f o u r d aily liv es. It can o n ly aro u se in d istin ct, ab stract o u tlin es, lik e excitem ent, despair, joy, sorrow , ease, reverence, hope, tenderness, etc.” 但是節奏是抽象的，

不是具體的情境，所以不能產生具體的情緒，如日常生活中的憤怒、畏懼、妒忌、嫌 惡等等，只能引起各種模糊隱約的抽象輪廓，如興奮、頹唐、欣喜、淒惻、平息、虔敬、

希冀、眷念等等.70 ⌧e e m o tio n s th a t c o m e fro m m u sic a n d rh y th m h a v e n o “o b je c t”

(duixiang 對象); th ey are “fo rm alized em o tio n s.” W h ere m u sic is ab stract, th erefo re, p o etry may be concrete. ⌧e distinction seems to recall Zhu’s e9orts to de$ne the basic distinction between poetry and prose, som ething he attem pted multiple times.71 ⌧a t d istin c tio n is generally along the lines of “feeling” versus “thinking,” denotation versus connotation

(“statin g” an d “su g g estin g”),72 meaning versus sound–“the matter may be understood solely 70 Ib id . 1 3 0 .

71 See “Fulu san: Shi yu sanw en (duihua)” 附錄三：詩與散文（對話） in Shi lun 3 0 3 -3 3 0 , an d Shi lun 105-118.

72 Shi lun 1 0 6 -1 0 8 .

133 from the m eaning of the w ords, but the tone m ust be experienced in the sound of the w ords”

事理可以專從文字的意義上領會；情趣必從文字的聲音上體驗73—and perhaps also along the lines of Apollonian and D ionysian in N ietzsche’s aesthetics. A lthough Z hu rejects su ch h ard an d fast d istin ctio n s, even tu ally refram in g p o etry an d p ro se in to a co n tin u u m in ste a d o f a b in a ry, h is in siste n c e o n “th e in trin sic v a lu e o f p o e tic m e te r” 詩的音律本身的

價值74 still red u ces th e o p erative d istin ctio n to th e p resen ce o r ab sen ce o f m u sic: “th e greatest value of m eter is, naturally, its m usicality. M usic itself is an art that produces a deep aesthetic experience” 音律的最大的價值自然在它的音樂性。音樂自身是一種產生濃厚

美感的藝術.75 ⌧e a b stra c t/c o n c re te a x is, w h ic h d istin g u ish e s th e e m o tio n s p ro d u c e d b y music from those produced by words, seems to map closely onto the a9ective/intellectual axis

–the more “poetic,” rhythmic, or musical texts occupying the more abstract, a9ective end of th e co n tin u u m . B y seg reg atin g co n ten t in to th e in tellectu al/p ro saic an d th e a9ective/p o etic,

Zhu can preserve the latter as a space for the expression of universal emotions that appeal directly to the intuition by reference to the rhythm s of hum an physiology.

Identity of Form and Content

Yet, when Zhu writes about the actual practice of literature–its writing, reading, and recitation–the boundary between the a9ective and intellectual levels disappears. His article

73 Ib id . 1 1 2 .

74 Ib id . 1 1 9 .

75 Ib id . 1 2 1 .

134 on “⌧e Sonic Rhythm of Prose” 散文的聲音節奏 makes some of the most interesting and serio u s claim s o f an y o f h is w o rk s o n literatu re, carryin g to its extrem e Z h u ’s freq u en t claim that poetry and prose are not fully distinct phenom ena. A m ore predictable de$n itio n o f prose might focus on rhythm as precisely what is absent, b u t Z h u ’s b ro a d d e $n itio n o f rh yth m allow s h im ro o m to an alyze n o t ju st th e rh yth m o f m etrical verse, b u t also free verse

–or even prose. Zhu’s traditional education, in which recitation practice would have been stro n gly em p h asized even fo r u n rh ym ed texts, h elp s to exp lain h is w illin gn ess to exp lo re th is question. Guwen in n o v a to r H a n Y u 韓愈 (7 6 8 -8 2 4 ) an d th e T o n g ch en g S ch o o l 桐城派 of the Q ing D ynasty (associated w ith Z hu’s ow n hom etow n; Z hu’s grandfather w as a friend of

Wu Rulun 吳汝綸, 1 8 4 0 -1 9 0 3 76) serve as preceden ts for the em phasis on m usicality in prose writing, a quality which Zhu locates in “the rise and fall, opening and closing of paragraphs; the length of sentences; the tonal m elody of characters; the parallelism and unevenness of passages” 段落的起伏開合，句的長短，字的平仄，文的駢散.77 In fa c t, a s Z h u p o in ts out, “It’s strange to say, but Chinese prose observed parallelism in tone and m eaning earlier th an p o etry d id ,” 78 p o in tin g to th e Mencius 孟子, Xunzi 荀子, a n d Laozi 老子 (Daodejing

道德經) as exam p les. A s h e d o es in h is d iscu ssio n o f rh yth m in Shi lun, Z h u c a sts th e rh yth m o f w ritten lan gu age as a q u estio n o f gestu re, so m eth in g to b e felt an d im itated b y th e

76 “C ong w o zenyang xue guow en shuoqi” 從我怎樣學國文說起 in Zhu Guangqian quanji 3 :4 4 2 .

77 “Sanw en de shengyin jiezou” 散文的聲音節奏 in Zhu Guangqian quan ji (H e fe i: A n h u i jia o y u c h u b a n sh e , 1987): 4 .2 1 1 .

78 Shi lun 202.

135 entire body, citing H an Yu’s dictum , “W hen the breath is full, then the length of phrases and th e p itch o f to n es w ill all b e h arm o n io u s” 氣盛則言之短長，聲之高下，皆宜.79

Understanding the sound and rhythm of written words is a very interesting matter. ⌧e average person thinks it requires sensitive ears, since sound produces sensation only w hen it is heard by the ears. In my experience, though, the ears may be important, but not as much as the m uscles of the entire body. W hen I read a piece of prose w ith sonorous tones and Iu id rh yth m s, m y b o d y’s m u scles seem to m o ve in th e sam e rh yth m ; it alw ays p ro d u ces a feelin g of great pleasure, whether the feeling is tense or relaxed. If the m elody and rhythm s are Iawed, my muscles feel awkw ard and uncom fortable, like I’m hearing the sound of a kitchen worker scraping char o9 the bottom of a pan. When I’m writing, if the mood strikes me, my muscles feel as though I am playing music, racing a horse, rowing a boat–I couldn’t stop even if I w anted to. If m y m ood isn’t right, then m y train of thought w ithers, and this kind of internal, m uscular rhythm isn’t there. Even if I force m yself to write, what I write is always aw kw ard and halting, like an out of tune string. So I believe deeply that sound and rhythm are of suprem e im portance to prose w riting.

領悟文字的聲音節奏，是一件極有趣的事。普通人以為這要耳朵靈敏，因為聲音要 用耳朵聽纔生感覺。就我個人的經驗來說，耳朵固然要緊，但是還不如周身筋肉。我 讀音調鏗鏘節奏流暢的文章，周身筋肉彷彿作同樣有節奏的運動；緊張，或是舒緩， 都產生出極愉快的感覺。如果音調節奏上有毛病，我的周身筋肉都感覺侷促不安， 好像聽廚子刮鍋煙似的。我自己在作文時，如果碰上興會，筋肉方面，也彷彿在奏 樂，在跑馬，在盪舟，想停也停不住。如果意興不佳，思路枯澀，這種內在的筋肉 節奏就不存在，儘管費力寫，寫出來的文章總是吱咯吱咯的，像沒有調好的絃子。 我因此深信聲音節奏對於文章是第一件要事.80

⌧e passage clearly connects two of the threads from Shi lun: th e e m p a th ic , p h y sio lo g ic a l aesthetics of rhythm on the one hand and the consistency of form and content on the other.

In “⌧e R h yth m o f P ro se,” Z h u n o tes th at “In fact, so u n d an d sen se can n o t b e fo rced ap art.

Som etim es the m eaning appears in the sound” 聲音與意義本不能強分，有時意義在聲

音上見出.81 ⌧is ra th e r m ild o b se rv a tio n is ta k e n fu rth e r la te r o n in th e a rtic le , w h e re Z h u

79 “Sanw en de shengyin jiezou” 219.

80 Ib id . 2 2 1 .

81 Ib id . 2 1 9 .

136 claim s that he has analyzed bad articles and discovered that, invariably, their rhythm is faulty.

In th ese cases, “th e au th o r’s th in k in g is n o t clear, h is to n e h as n o t b een p o lish ed ” 作者的思

路不清楚，情趣沒有洗練得好.82 “ If th e th in k in g is d iso rd e rly, th e rh y th m w ill c e rta in ly be confused” 思路散亂，節奏一定錯亂.83

⌧e fallacy potentially implied in these statements receives fuller elaboration in a series o f th ree articles co llectively titled “L iteratu re an d L an gu age” 文學與語文. ⌧e $rst o f the series, “C ontent, Form , and E xpression” 內容、形式與表現, a rg u e s a g a in st tw o com m only-repeated form ulas: “M eaning is external to language” yi zai yan w ai 意在言外 and “M eaning com es before language” yi zai yan qian 意在言前.84 ⌧e a rtic le b e g in s w ith a prescription for writers: “W hat I want is precision and appropriateness in language, the total consistency betw een w hat the m ind w ants to say and w hat the hand w rites, unam biguous, unexaggerated–the right words arranged in the right places” 我所要求的是語文的精確妥

貼，心裡所要說的與手裡所寫出來的完全一致，不含糊，也不誇張，最適當的字句

安排在最適當的位置.85 T ypically, Z hu points out that thinking involves the entire body– a person deep in thought w ill assum e certain postures w hich, if interrupted, w ill disrupt his or her train of thought–and that the speech organ is just one other physical realization of

82 Ib id . 2 2 3 .

83 Ib id . 2 2 5 .

84 “W enxue yu yuw en (shang): neirong, xingshi yu biaoxian” 226.

85 “W enxue yu yuw en (shang): neirong, xingshi yu biaoxian” 226.

137 th e act o f th o u g h t. H e cites th e B eh avio rists to say th at “⌧ough t is silen t speech ; speech is th o u g h t vo calized ” 思想是無聲的語言，語言也就是有聲的思想.86 W ritin g, th erefore, is merely an act of recording, not of creation; something inexpressible in language is in reality merely something one has not thought through clearly enough. “When we search for the righ t w o rd s, w e are n o t search in g fo r w o rd s th at are w ith o u t m ean in g, an d sin ce w o rd s h ave meaning, what we are searching for is not the words alone but also their meaning. ...

Together they constitute thought, and there is not any distinction of interior and exterior, or anterior and posterior” 在尋求字句時，我們並非尋求無意義的字句；字句既有意義，

則所尋求的不單是字句而同時是它的意義。⋯統名之為思想，其中無內外先後的分

別.87 ⌧e m e a n in g c a n n o t e x ist b e fo re o r b e y o n d th e w o rd s; b o th m e a n in g a n d w o rd s c o m e in to e x iste n c e to g e th e r.

By arguing that meaning is neither exterior nor anterior to language but that the two are coterm inous and inseparable, Z hu is insisting on the w ord, phrase, or passage’s identity with itself. Any change in wording, any rephrasing or rearrangement, would produce a di9erent meaning; in essence, this is a kind of radical form alism in which meaning is tied inextricably to each unique utterance. In fact, anyone w ho insists on the im portance of formal features to works of art–as we wish to–must, to some degree, approve of this line of reaso n in g. If m ean in g is fu lly tran sp o rtab le, th en th ere is little ratio n ale fo r p o etry to b egin with–or for any new works of art, really, since, according to Zhu, “In terms of raw material,

86 Ib id . 2 2 9 .

87 Ib id . 2 3 1 .

138 everything in the w orld that can be thought or spoken of has already been said by people before” 就生糙的材料說，世間可想到可說出的話在大體上都已經從前人想過說過.88

Only the form can be new, and it makes all the di9erence: “Change the form and you change th e co n ten t” 變遷了形式，就變遷了內容.89

Such statem ents lead Zhu to a highly original view of language in the context of tw en tieth cen tu ry C h in a. If m ean in g is id en tical to th e lan g u ag e th at exp resses it, tran slatio n is precluded by de$n itio n . Z h u re a c h e s to w a rd s th is c o n c lu sio n in th e th ird e ssa y o f

“L iterature and Language,” entitled “Wenyan, Baihua, a n d E u ro p e a n iza tio n ” 文言、白話與

歐化. In Ie sh in g o u t h is p ro g ra m fo r th e d e v e lo p m e n t o f w ritte n baihua, Z h u a d v o c a te s a certain degree of Europeanization of the C hinese language:

Language and thought cannot be separated. As the method and content of thought change, so to o m u st lan gu age ch an ge. U n less yo u ab so lu tely reject W estern sch o larsh ip , yo u can n o t fail to consider accepting the organization peculiar to W estern languages. You cannot use the language of the pre-Q in m asters to “think” K ant or W hitehead’s philosophy, and therefore you naturally cannot use that language to “express” their philosophy either.

語文和思想不能分開。思想的方式和內容變遷，語文就必跟着變遷，除非你絕對拒 絕西方學術，要不然，你無法不酌量接受西方語文的特殊組織。你不能用先秦諸子 的語文去“想”康德或懷特海的思想，自然也就不能用那種語文去“表現”他們的 思想.90

⌧is conclusion $ts Zhu’s moderate politics: if you must modernize, then you must also ren o vate cu ltu ral fo rm s; o n th e o th er h an d , as th ere is n o n eed to th ro w o u t everyth in g

88 “X uanze yu anpai” in Zhu Guangqian quan ji (H e fe i: A n h u i jia o y u c h u b a n sh e , 1 9 8 7 ), 4 :2 0 7 .

89 Ib id .

90 “W enxue yu yuw en (xia): wenyan, baihua yu ouhua” in Zhu Guangqian quan ji (H e fe i: A n h u i jia o y u chubanshe, 1987), 4:247. ⌧e re a re so m e sim ila ritie s h e re w ith L u X u n ’s “sti9 tra n sla tio n ” yingyi 硬譯, th o u g h u n lik e L u X u n Z h u is very m u ch m o tivated b y th e p leasu re o f th e text.

139 traditional, language and culture can evolve gradually as new concepts and truths com e to light. N onetheless, Z hu has now taken the som ew hat contradictory position of advocating cultural assim ilation w hile rejecting the possibility of translation.

Conclusions: The Rhythm of History

Where has Zhu Guangqian left us? ⌧e rhythm of a piece of writing must, on the one hand, reIect the organization of the thoughts it contains, be consistent with its content.

On the other hand, it must satisfy the physiological and psychological rhythms inherent in th e read er. ⌧e co m p ro m ise th at th o u g h t itself o n ly ch an g es b y d eg rees an d w ith in constraints only papers over the vast di9erences betw een peoples, including the vast epistem ological gaps confronting C hinese intellectuals in their encounters w ith W estern scien ti$c an d p h ilo so p h ical d isco u rse. Y et w h at m ak es Shi lun su c h a p o w e rfu l e x p lo ra tio n o f poetics is its refusal to reduce aesthetic categories to cultural particulars; even the four tones th at fo rm th e m elo d ic p attern in g o f C h in a’s g reatest artistic acco m p lish m en t, th e reg u lated verse of the Tang Dynasty, are not the sole property of the Chinese language–if we looked

140 hard enough, we could $nd them in the greatest English verse as well. Zhu Guangqian’s aesthetics of rhythm is neither sim ply a productive m isreading of W estern theoretical m odels nor an unam biguous subjection of Chinese culture to imperialist foreign discourse; it rep resen ts rath er Z h u G u an gq ian ’s search fo r catego ries o f d i9eren ce so ab so lu te, so $n ely divided, as to encom pass and erase all other distinctions at once. If the prom ised erasure of th e lin e b etw een self an d o th er co u ld exist, it w o u ld exist o n th is level.

In h isto rical term s, Z h u ’s p o etics are co n sisten t w ith w h at S h u -m ei S h ih h as d escrib ed as the “m odernity w ithout rupture” advocated by the Beijing School.91 If “rh y th m is b o rn from the succession , the in tersection , the dialogue of iden tity an d di9eren ce,” 92 th e n h isto ry to o , w ith its “cycles o f rise an d fall, p ro sp erity an d d eclin e,” 93 le n d s itse lf to a lo g ic o f rh y th m , not of rupture–yet this logic is not strictly one of endless repetition, but rather of repetition and variation, antecedent and consequent. Z hu’s literary historical account of the em ergence of regulated verse poetry bears this out: “Literary history, of its nature, cannot be forced into periods” 文學史本來不可強分時期.94 R e g u la te d v e rse , Z h u e x p la in s, w a s b u ilt p a rtly o n the foundation of existing C hinese poetic practice and partly on the inIu en ce o f lin g u istic contact w ith Sanskrit, beginning in the Eastern H an w ith the $rst w ave of sutra tran slatio n s.95 R e g u la te d v e rse is n o t a “fo re ig n ” v e rse fo rm fo r Z h u ,96 b u t it w a s m a d e

91 Shih 151.

92 Shi lun 124. 93 Ib id . 94 Shi lun 1 8 6 . 95 Ib id . 2 0 5 .

96 See Lucas Klein’s dissertation Foreign Echoes and Discerning the Soil (P h .D . d isse rta tio n , Y a le U n iv e rsity,

141 possible through translation and cultural contact. “⌧e study of Sanskrit pronunciation gave

Chinese philologists an important impetus and a systematic method” 梵音的研究給中國研

究字音學者一個重大的刺激和一個有系統的方法,97 a c o n d itio n th a t Z h u lik e n s th a t period of cultural contact and study to his ow n time. ⌧e reason why twentieth century scholars have been able to discover so m uch m ore about the C hinese language than scholars during the Qing “is precisely because they lacked, and because we have, W estern linguistics to serve as a m odel” 就因為他們沒有、而我們有西方語言學做榜樣.98 ⌧e modern period, characterized in part by the massive, disruptive importation of discourses and cultural form s from the W est, for Z hu, is a kind of repetition w ith variation of the Six D ynasties and its contact with Buddhism–suggesting that perhaps what comes next could be a variation on the m otif of the golden age, the H igh Tang.

If Z h u G u an gq ian h as o n e p aram o u n t stren gth , it is $n d in g th e sim ilarities b etw een disparate phenom ena. Perhaps a con$dence in the fundam ental sam eness of phenom ena does lead him to a sort of “serenity,” one w hich cannot support “vehem ent” revolution, cannot im agine a tear in the fabric of an unbroken m usical text com posed of an in$n ite n u m b e r o f pertinent relations. On the other hand, it is radical enough to claim one prefers noise to music–isn’t it even more radical to claim there is no distinction between them to begin with?

2010): 192-246, for a reading of regulated verse poetry in light of its Indian-Buddhist roots.

97 Shi lun 2 0 6 .

98 Ib id .

142 Chapter 4 Translatability

“Poetry is Poetry”: ⌧e U ntranslatable and the Already-Translated

The Untranslatable and the Already-Translated

As a literary tradition caught $rmly in between China and the rest of the world, modern Chinese poetry constantly raises questions of translation. Because the early writers of

New Poetry took Western poetic forms as their models, modern Chinese poetry has relied on th e larg e-scale tran slatio n o f texts in to C h in ese; at th e sam e tim e, th e exten t to w h ich them es, im ages, tropes, and even form al features have entered m odern C hinese poetry from abroad has created a tradition in w hich even original com position is unavoidably im plicated in the negotiation of foreign and native elements–in other words, a tradition in which com position is itself a kind of translation, w here original poem s are, in a sense, already- tran slated . ⌧e politics of such a negotiation stem from the unequal prestige of m odern languages and literatures in the $eld of W orld L iterature: at the start, n ew poetry’s origin s in th e clim ate o f th e M ay F o u rth N ew C u ltu re m o vem en t, am o n g aXu en t in tellectu als train ed at W estern institutions or after W estern m odels, m eant that the Iow of translation could only proceed in one direction, from the W est to China.1 (E v e n m a n y n o n -W e ste rn p o e ts w h o

1 At the same time, a well-known litany of Western modernist movements and $gures including Ezra Pound and the Im agists, A rt N ouveau, Bertolt Brecht, Sergei Eisenstein, C laude D ebussy, Igor Stravinsky, and many others explicitly found inspiration in traditional East Asian arts.

143 becam e popular in China during this time such as Om ar Khayyam and Rabindranath Tagore were approached through the intermediary language of English.) As a result, however adm irable the cosm opolitan tendencies of m odern poets m ay be, m odern C hinese poetry is still u n d en iab ly im p licated in th e stru ctu ral in eq u alities an d p o w er d yn am ics o f w o rld cultural m arkets, and to som e nativist readers, it is a potentially treasonous product of colonial and postcolonial m odernity w hose legitim acy is constantly at issue. M odern C hinese poetry, in its hybridity, is a reIection of the cultural and political climate of the postcolonial world–in reality, merely one special case of cultural production that inevitably belongs to th e h isto rical co n d itio n s th at su rro u n d its p ro d u ctio n an d recep tio n . A t th e sam e tim e, poetry em bodies a dialectic of form and content whose historical roots reach much further back in time and much more deeply into a particular cultural tradition than those of $lm, say, o r televisio n , so th e cu ltu ral p o litics o f m o d ern p o etry an d its statu s as alread y-tran slated becom e all the more salient.

⌧e issue of modern Chinese literature as already-translated is not particular to the

$eld of poetry; prose writing has also seen a lively debate over style and “Europeanization” 歐

化, th a t is, th e p ro c e ss o f a d a p tin g C h in e se to g ra m m a tic a l a n d sty listic te n d e n c ie s characteristic of European languages. G eorge K ao (1912-2008), w ho published m any

144 translations in both E nglish and C hinese under the pennam e Q iaozhi G ao 喬志高,2 a tta c k e d the phenom enon in a footnote to his 1975 translation of Q ian Z hongshu’s 錢鍾書 (1 9 1 0 -

1988) article “⌧e Translations of Lin Shu” 林紓的翻譯.3 Q ia n ’s a rtic le a rg u e s th a t th e tru ly excellent translation, one w hich has attained the “realm of transform ations” huajing 化境 to which all art aspires, should not read like a translation, “for a literary work in its own language w ill never read as though it has been through a process of translation” 讀起來不像

譯本，因為作品在原文裡決不會讀起來像經過翻譯似的.4 K a o , a s tra n sla to r, in te rje c ts,

Qian would have been more accurate if he had said hardly ever. It is a w e ll-k n o w n a n d deplorable fact that present-day native writers of the Chinese language (whether in Taiwan, Hong Kong, or mainland China) often produce writing that reads “as though it has been through a process of translation.” In other w ords, they w rite a brand of C hinese that reads like some Western language. –– Translator5

⌧e denigration of Europeanized syntax or of “translationese” (fa n yi ti 翻譯體), C h in ese th at seem s to have been translated from a E uropean language, is part of the sam e debate over

$delity in translation in which Qian was participating through his essay. Lin Shu 林紓

(1852-1924) is often cited as evidence of the supposed trade-o9 b etw een fo reig n izin g

2 ⌧is name itself is a complicated bilingual pun. Qiao 喬 is a C hinese surnam e, encouraging us to read Zhigao 志高 as a personal nam e and reference to the c o n v e n tio n a l e x p re ssio n zhigao qiyang 志高氣揚, meaning proud and self-con$dent. At the same time, Q ia o zh i (o fte n w ritte n 喬治) is also a tran sliteratio n of the English nam e George, making the Chinese nam e a straight transliteration of the English “G eorge Kao,” with the order of personal and family names reversed from the Chinese. Qiao and gao, furthermore, rh ym e an d are etym o lo gically related .

3 Qian Zhongshu, “⌧e translations of Lin Shu,” trans. George Kao, Tw entieth-Century Chinese Translation ✏eory, e d . T a k -h u n g L e o C h a n (P h ila d e lp h ia : Jo h n B e n ja m in s, 2 0 0 4 ): 1 0 4 -1 1 4 .

4 Ib id . 1 0 4 ; o rigin al in Qian Zhongshu lunxue wenxuan (G u a n g zh o u : H u a c h e n g c h u b a n sh e , 1 9 9 0 ): 6 .1 0 6 .

5 Chan 116.

145 faith fuln ess an d “sm ooth n ess” or readability in tran slation ; Q ian’s article defen ds L in’s vivid but notoriously inaccurate $ction translations, on the basis that they were enjoyable to read and led him eventually to read the originals. Q ian Z hongshu’s defense of pleasure is supported by the etym ological connections of the character yi 譯 “tran slate”; it is related , he reports, to the characters you 誘 (en tice), mei 媒 (tran sm it), e 訛 (m isrep resen t), an d hua

化 (tran sfo rm ). M o reo ver, Q ian w rites, th e H an D yn asty d ictio n ary Shuow en jiezi 說文解字 contains the follow ing de$nition for the character e 囮 : “ E m e a n s yi 譯. It is c o m p o se d o f kou [m o u th ] a n d hua [tra n sfo rm ]. ⌧o se w h o lu re b ird s tie a liv e b ird to m a k e th e m c o m e ; th is is called e” 囮，譯也。从口、化。率鳥者繫生鳥以來之，名曰囮.6 A c c o rd in g to Q ia n , translation is a kind of decoy–one pretends to be like the reader to entice him; Qian considered reading literature above all a pleasurable experience, and Lin Shu’s translations su cceed ed in attractin g h im to th e lan gu ages an d literatu res o f th e o rigin al w o rk s. B y p raisin g

Lin’s translations for the enjoym ent they brought to him and many other readers, Qian argues against a kind of literal or “direct” translation (zhiyi 直譯) th at vio lates th e ru les an d conventions of the target language in its dogged adherence to the form al features of the original–the kind of foreignizing translation practice that, due to the important role of tran slated texts in tw en tieth cen tu ry C h in a, h as n o rm alized “tran slatio n ese” as an availab le mode of original composition in George Kao’s time.

⌧ough Kao and others may object to prose writing that seems to have “been

6 “L in Shu de fanyi” 18.

146 th ro u g h a p ro cess o f tran slatio n ,” it is p o ssib le to w rite a m o d ern n o vel in C h in ese w ith o u t anyone questioning its C hineseness; the w orks of Bai X ianyong 白先勇, E ile e n C h a n g 張愛

玲, a n d Q ia n Z h o n g sh u h im se lf a ll d ra w c o m p lim e n ta ry c o m p a riso n s to tra d itio n a l C h in e se

$ction at the sam e time as they are undoubtedly modern. Conversely, modern Chinese poetry’s credentials as “C hinese” are constantly in question: the critical cliché that modern

Chinese poetry is essentially foreign, not Chinese, and may as well have been translated from som e other language has been repeated since N ew Poetry’s inauguration. A te n sio n b e tw e e n acceptably “m odern” or cosm opolitan borrow ing and m ere aping or incom plete assim ilation of foreign elem ents recurs throughout the $rst hundred years of Chinese new poetry criticism

–for instance, it surrounds Guo Moruo’s exotic $rst collection ✏e Goddesses 女神, w h ic h

Wen Yiduo praises for its “modern spirit” (sh id a i jin gsh en 時代精神) and cosm opolitanism 7 at the sam e tim e as he criticizes its preference for W estern color over C hinese color.8

If I w ere in G u o’s p lace [livin g in h igh ly W estern ized Jap an ], ... I w o u ld co n stan tly rem in d myself that I am a Chinese person. I want to write new poetry, but Chinese new poetry. I don’t want to becom e a Chinese-speaking W esterner, and I don’t want people to mistake my works for translations of Western poetry.

若我是在郭君底地位，⋯⋯我要時時刻刻想着我是中國人，我要做新詩，但是中國 的新詩，我並不要做個西洋人說中國話，也不要人們誤會我的作品是翻譯的西文詩. 9

As we saw in chapter two, this insinuation was repeated with regard to the Symbolist poetry

7 Wen Yiduo 聞一多, “ ‘N ü sh e n ’ zh i sh id a i jin g sh e n ” 女神之時代精神, Wen Yiduo quanji (H o n g K o n g : Nantong tushu gongsi, 1977): 3.185-194.

8 Wen Yiduo, “ ‘Nüshen’ zhi difang secai” 女神之地方色彩, Wen Yiduo quanji (H o n g K o n g : N a n to n g tu sh u gongsi, 1977): 3.195.

9 Ib id . 1 9 7 .

147 of the 1920s and O bscure (M englong) poetry of the 1980s. In the 1950s, while discussing

“n ation al-eth n ic fo rm ” minzu xingshi 民族形式 in lite ra tu re a n d th e a rts, A i Q in g 艾青 sco ld ed h is fello w m o d ern p o ets fo r failin g to b e essen tially C h in ese: “ If y o u a d d e d ‘tra n sla te d by’ to the writer’s nam e, we would think a foreigner had written it, because it’s missing a

Chinese Iavor. I myself have written many poems like this” 那種詩，假如在作者名字下

面再加一個‘譯’字，我們就會以為是外國人寫的，因為它們沒有中國的氣味。我

自己就寫過不少這類的詩.10 G u a n Jie m in g 關傑明, $rin g a sh o t in th e p ro lo n g e d d e b a te over M odernism in Taiwan, begins his article on “⌧e Predicam ent of M odern Chinese

Poets” 中國現代詩人的困境 by recounting how a graduate student of his, on Iipping through W ai-lim Y ip’s translations of m odern C hinese poets into E nglish, rem arked, “I didn’t know so m any Chinese poets wrote poem s in English” 我沒想到有這麼多中國詩人寫英

文詩.11 G u a n a d m its th a t Y ip ’s sk ill m a y h a v e b e e n p a rtly re sp o n sib le fo r c re a tin g tra n sla tio n s that seem ed natural in E nglish, but upon further consideration, he echoes w hat W en Y iduo and A i Q ing had w ritten decades before: N ew Poetry resem bles W estern (especially English or Am erican) poetry too m uch; even original New Poetry seem s as if it were translated.

⌧e endpoint of such an observation is the suggestion that the “already-translated”

10 Ai Qing 艾青, “ S h i d e x in g sh i w e n ti” 詩的形式問題, Zhongguo xiandai shilun 中國現代詩論, e d . Y a n g Kuanghan and Liu Fuchun (Guangzhou: Huacheng chubanshe, 1986): 2.20. Interestingly, in the version of this essay collected in A i’s com plete w orks (Shijiazhuang: H uashan w enyi chubanshe, 1991), the last sen ten ce h as b een excised .

11 Guan Jieming 關傑明, “ Z h o n g g u o x ia n d a i sh ire n d e k u n jin g ” 中國現代詩人的困境, Zhonghua xiandai wenxue daxi: Taiwan 1970-1989 中華現代文學大系：台灣一九七〇－一九八九, e d . Y u G u a n g zh o n g 余光中 (T aip ei: Jiu ge ch u b an sh e, 1 9 8 9 ): 2 .8 8 0 .

148 New Poetry might as well go back where it came from; that it can simply be “untranslated”

(in to E n g lish etc.) w ith o u t lo ss. ⌧is is S tep h en O w en ’s b y n o w fam iliar critiq u e o f contem porary (1980s) C hinese poetry as a m ere extension of W estern M odernism : a participant in a “W orld Poetry” that is able to circulate internationally through Iuent, fam iliar tran slation s in to prestige-w ieldin g lan guages (n otably E n glish ) because it is com posed according to rules inherited from French and English M odernism .12 B e c a u se it is able to survive this sw im upstream tow ards the sources of prestige (the N obel Prize com m ittee is m entioned, but w e could also include the syllabi of university courses in the

West, international book festivals, and other institutions of world literature), it receives in stitution al en couragem en t, w hile other, “less tran slatable” poetries are left for “in tern al consum ption.”13 C ru c ia l to th e a w a re n e ss o f th e a lre a d y -tra n sla te d is m o u rn in g fo r th e lo ss o f th e irred u cib ly p articu lar. ⌧e id ea th at so m eth in g essen tial to p o etry is u n tran slatab le, th at

“Poetry has traditionally been built of w ords w ith a particular history of usage in a single language–of words that cannot be exchanged for other words,”14 is w h a t le a d s to th e disparagem ent of translated poetry to begin with.

On the one hand, there is the belief that poetry contains the irreducibly original, which does not bear imitation, translation, or any other copying; on the other hand, there is

12 Stephen O w en, “W hat is W orld Poetry?”, New Republic (1 9 N o v. 1 9 9 0 ): 2 8 -3 2 . S e e c h a p te r 1 fo r m o re o n th e W o rld P o etry d eb ates.

13 Stephen O w en, “Stepping Forw ard and Back: Issues and Possibilities for ‘W orld’ Poetry” in M odern Philology 100.4 (M ay 2003): 546.

14 “W hat is W orld Poetry?” 28.

149 th e su g g estio n th at, in a g lo b al literary $eld, “original” poetry could be com posed only elsew here, thousands of m iles aw ay, in Europe or A m erica, or else in the irreducibly particular cultural past. ⌧e contem porary ⌧ird W orld can only produce texts that, to a

Western reader, seem “already-read.”15 Yet, in the case of m odern C hinese poetry, this experience does not belong only to the First W orld reader; O w en’s article follow s in the trad itio n o f n ative C h in ese critiq u es o f m o d ern C h in ese p o etry as w ell. O w en ’s d istin ctio n between “C hinese literature” and “literature that began in the Chinese language”16 is n o di9erent from the distinction that native Chinese critics make between writing that seem s to have been translated and writing that is bona $de Chinese. His article thus participates in the century-old m odern C hinese discourse surrounding the relationship of original com position and translation, of “direct” (foreignizing) and “idiom atic” (nativizing) translation practices, of the possibility or desirability of translating poetry at all.

Paradoxes of Fidelity

Chinese translation theory in the twentieth century concerned itself largely with the su p p o sed trad e-o 9 b etw een Iu en cy an d faith fu ln ess. R ep resen tin g faith fu ln ess is th e view , elaborated by Lu X un, that translations should force the phrase structure of foreign languages onto baihua, u n d e r th e p ro v o c a tiv e la b e l “sti9 tra n sla tio n ” yingyi 硬譯. In a se rie s o f ad

15 Longxi Zhang draws this com parison between Owen’s review and Frederic Jam eson’s “⌧ird-World Literature in the Era of Multinational Capital.” Mighty Opposites 1 3 0 .

16 “W hat is W orld Poetry?” 30

150 hom inem le tte rs e x c h a n g e d w ith th e C re sc e n t S c h o o l-a lig n e d L ia n g S h iq iu 梁實秋 (1 9 0 3 -

1987), Lu associates “Iuent translation” (sh u n yi 順譯) w ith pan derin g to readerly pleasure

(sh u a n gk u a i 爽快), th at is, w ith p o litically reactio n ary aesth eticism .17 S ti9 tra n sla tio n sim u ltan eo u sly aim s to in tro d u ce d i6cu lt m o d ern th o u gh t in to th e C h in ese co n scio u sn ess, and at the same time expand the suitability for Chinese to express such modern thought–by

$lling in “de$ciencies” quedian 缺點 su ch as its relatively p au city o f su b o rd in ate p h rases. ⌧e displeasure produced by Lu Xun’s translation style is taken as evidence of the backw ardness of most Chinese readers and the conventions of style familiar to them; di6culty is a badge of modernity. “My translations are not for the pleasure of the broad readership, but often create discom fort or even anger, hatred, and indignation” 我的譯作，本不在博讀者的‘爽快’，

卻往往給以不舒服，甚而至於使人氣悶，憎惡，憤恨.18 ⌧ro u g h o u t th e le tte rs, L u

Xun continually meshes two seemingly separate issues: the linguistic di6culty of his tran slatio n s o f S o viet leftist w riters (in th is case L u n ach arsk y ) o n th e o n e h an d an d th e discom fort caused by the radical ideas contained in the translations on the other. Lu Xun im plies that L iang is threatened by his translations not just because they are “sti9,” b u t because they are unsettling to the status quo. In som e ways this argum ent is a perplexing confusion of form and content–was Lunacharsky’s text “sti9” in the original, and if not, was it the less radical for it?–but one can also see Lu Xun’s agenda with respect to shaping the

17 Lu Xun 魯迅, “ ‘Y in g y i’ y u ‘w e n x u e d e jie jix in g ’” 硬譯與文學的階級性, Lu Xun quanji 魯迅全集 (B eijing: R enm in w enxue chubanshe, 1987): 4.195-222.

18 Ib id . 1 9 7 .

151 modern Chinese language, particularly in light of the history of modern Japanese.

Japanese is very unlike E uro-A m erican [languages], but [the Japanese] gradually added new gram m ar. Com pared to the classical language, [m odern Japanese] is m ore suited for tran slatio n w ith o u t lo sin g th e vig o ro u s to n e it’s alw ays h ad . A t $rst, o f co u rse th ey n eed ed to ‘trace the threads of the gram m ar,’ w hich m ust have m ade a few people very unhappy, but once they got into the habit, [the new gram m ar] was assim ilated. It becam e a given.

日本語和歐美很‘不同’，但他們逐漸添加了新句法，比起古文來，更宜於翻譯而 不失原來的精悍的語氣，開初自然是須‘找尋句法的線索位置’，很給了一些人不 ‘愉快’的，但經找尋和習慣，現在已經同化，成為已有了.19

Here, the goal of “direct” or “sti9” translation is not only $delity to the content of the original, but the expansion of gram m atical and stylistic possibility in the target language– th e fo rm al ren o v atio n o f C h in ese.

“Sti9” translation is one approach to the issue of $delity, or xin 信, w h ic h o c c u p ie s a prom inent place in Chinese theories of translation. Yan Fu 嚴復 (1 8 5 4 -1 9 2 1 ) fam o u sly in tro d u c e d h is th re e c rite ria fo r su c c e ssfu l tra n sla tio n in th e p re fa c e to h is re n d itio n o f

⌧omas Huxley’s Evolution and Ethics, Tianyan lun 天演論: “ ⌧e th re e d i6c u ltie s o f th e enterprise of translation are $delity, com prehensibility, and elegance. Seeking $delity is already a great di6culty, but to attend to $delity at the expense of com prehensibility is no better than not translating at all. For this reason, com prehensibility is the suprem e am ong th em ” 譯事三難：信、達、雅。求其信已大難矣，顧信矣不達，雖譯猶不譯也，則達

尚焉.20 ⌧e se th re e te rm s, $d e lity (xin 信), co m p reh en sib ility (da 達), an d eleg an ce (ya 雅), did not originate with Yan–he borrowed them from the second century monk-translator

19 Ib id . 1 9 9 .

20 Yan Fu 嚴復, Yan Fu heji 嚴復合集 (T aip ei: C aitu an faren G u G o n glian g w en jiao jijin h u i, 1 9 9 8 ): 7 .1 7 6 .

152 Zhi Qian 知謙21—but Yan’s work set them as the primary standards of judgm ent in the

Chinese discussion on translation throughout the twentieth century. Part of the reason for th eir in Iuence seem s to be their very im precision, and subsequent w riters have taken the opportunity to revise or re-order the list. For exam ple, as Tak-hung Leo Chan points out, elegance w as frequently rejected by Yan’s follow ers, since it w as considered to be a reference to T on gchen g-style classical prose;22 a s M a y F o u rth w rite rs w e re c o m m itte d to th e n o tio n o f baihua a s th e n e u tra l p ro se sty le , th e e n fo rc e d “e le g a n c e” o f c la ssic a l p ro se m a d e it u n su ita b le fo r tran slatio n in th eir v iew . ⌧rough the years, a num ber of im portant contributors to tran slation studies an d criticism in C h in a h ave revised Yan F u’s th ree criteria to place $d elity in th e p o sitio n o f su p re m e im p o rta n c e , in c lu d in g C h e n X iy in g 陳西瀅 in 1 9 2 9 23 a n d Z h u

Guangqian in 1944.24 Z h u ’s a rg u m e n t th a t th e d e g re e o f c o m p re h e n sib ility a n d e le g a n c e in a tran slatio n sh o u ld itself b e faith fu l to th o se q u alities in th e o rig in al w as rep rised b y lin g u ist

Yuen Ren Chao in 1968.25 F o r in sta n c e , C h a o a rg u e s th a t tra n sla tin g “ Y o u a re a d a m n fo o l!” in to C h in e se a s “ Ni shi yige hen bu zhihui de ren” 你是一個很不智慧的人 (sem i-literally:

“You are a very unw ise m an”), w ould achieve elegance, but at the expense of faithfulness.

21 Chan 17.

22 Chan 6.

23 Chan 93-97.

24 Zhu Guangqian, “Lun fanyi” 論翻譯, Z h u G u a n g q ia n q u a n ji (H e fe i: A n h u i jia o y u c h u b a n sh e , 1 9 8 8 ): 4.288-301.

25 Yuen Ren Chao, “D imensions of Fidelity in Translation W ith Special Reference to Chinese” in HJAS V o l. 29 (1969): 109-130.

153 Sim ilarly, a novelist would not render the speech of all his characters with equal Iuency

(C h ao’s tran slatio n o f da 達, c o m p re h e n sib ility 26), so n eith er sh o u ld th e tran slato r. In essence, Chao argues, any characteristics of the translation–including stylistic elements– should correspond to the original. A nd yet, now w e have begun to approach a paradox: we can no longer pretend to divide our original cleanly into form and content (or expression and meaning) and discard the one to preserve the other. E v e n th e m o m e n t w e h a v e re d u c e d o u r criteria to $delity alone, that single question explodes back into a plethora of m utually in c o m p a tib le $d e litie s: le x ic a l, sy n ta c tic , fu n c tio n a l, a u d ito ry.

Although Chao’s term “multidimensional”27 c a p tu re s p a rt o f th e p ro b le m o f $d e lity

–there are various levels in the original to which one could be faithful–it does not address th e co m p lexity o f trad e-o 9s req u ired . F id elity is th e req u irem en t th at a tran slated text b e so m eh o w th e sam e as th e o rigin al, a p o ten tially p arad o xical d em an d . Z h u Z iq in g 朱自清 cites the Fanyi mingyi ji 翻譯名義集, a d ic tio n a ry o f S a n sk rit B u d d h ist te rm in o lo g y fro m the Liu Song D ynasty (420-279), w hich explains the character yi 譯 in a w ay that expresses th is p arad o x: “W h at is m ean t b y tran slatio n [yi 譯] is ch an g e [yi 易]; it m ean s yo u ch an g e what you have into what you lack” 譯之言，易也；謂以所有，易其所無.28 S u c h

26 Let us boldly muddy the waters further: Zhao/Chao would prefer to translate these terms “$delity, lucidity, and beauty,” to create a pleasant “sound e9ect” in English, but he retreats from “lucidity” to “Iuency” in the service of–what else–$delity.

27 Chao 130.

28 Cited by Zhu Ziqing 朱自清, “ Y i m in g ” 譯名, Fanyi yanjiu lunw en ji 翻譯研究論文集 (B eijin g: W aiyu jia o x u e y u y a n jiu c h u b a n sh e , 1 9 8 4 ): 3 9 . A lso p a ra d o x ic a lly, th is d e $n itio n re lie s o n a p u n th a t c a n o n ly work in Chinese, much like the oft-cited Italian phrase tra d u ttore, tra d itore.

154 alchem y w ould seem to violate the principle of the conservation of m atter, though, and Z hu cites other authorities w hich em phasize continuity, rather than change: the Yangzi 楊子 de$nes yi a s “to p a ss o n ” 譯，傳也.29

⌧e contradictions between the various possible dimensions of $delity come out in th e co n Iict b etw een th e p ro p o n en ts o f “d irect tran slatio n ,” o r zhiyi 直譯, a n d p ro p o n e n ts o f what we might call “idiomatic translation,” or yiyi 意譯.30 F ro m th e p e rsp e c tiv e o f d ire c t tran slatio n ad vo cates, p ro p o n en ts o f id io m atic tran slatio n are frivo lo u s aesth etes, afraid to confront radically foreign ideas, w hereas to idiom atic translators, direct translators com m it unforgivable violence against the target language. As Zhu Guangqian points out, both term s have a negative connotation: “direct translation” tends to imply the mechanical replacem ent of words with their de$nitions from a bilingual dictionary, ignoring the rules of gram m ar and usage in the target language, resulting in a translation that lacks Iuency and com prehensibility (ton gsh u n 通順); w h ereas “id io m atic tran slatio n ” ten d s to im p ly a cru d e, im precise approach that glosses over problem s and di6c u ltie s in th e o rig in a l, c o v e rin g u p de$ciencies in the translator’s know ledge, or striving only to please the reader with its Iuency

–criticisms associated with the translations of the proli$c but linguistically untrained Lin

29 Ib id .

30 Yiyi is a lso u se d to m e a n se m a n tic tra n sla tio n (i.e . th e u su a l m e a n in g o f tra n sla tio n ) in c o n tra d istin c tio n to yinyi 音譯, p h o n e tic tra n sla tio n , o r m o re p ro p e rly tra n slite ra tio n . F o r e x a m p le , re n d e rin g F in la n d fen la n 芬 蘭 is p h o n e tic tra n sla tio n , w h ile re n d e rin g Ic e la n d bingdao 冰島 is se m a n tic tra n sla tio n .

155 Shu.31 ⌧e d a n g e r in id io m a tic tra n sla tio n is, fo r Z h u G u a n g q ia n , “a n a rc h ic tra n sla tio n ” lu a n yi 亂譯, w h e re th e tra n sla to r fe e ls fre e to re v ise a n d im p ro v e th e o rig in a l w ith o u t a n y se n se o f obligation to the criterion of $delity; Zhou Zuoren uses the term “reckless translation” hu yi

胡譯,32 a n d M a o D u n “d isto rte d tra n sla tio n ” wai yi 歪譯 (ag ain , exp licitly asso ciated w ith

Lin Shu).33 In th e c a se o f E d w a rd F itzG e ra ld a n d h is c a n o n ic a l b u t in v e n tiv e tra n sla tio n o f

Omar Khayyam’s Rubaiyat, Z h u c o in s th e m o re n e u tra l “re v isio n -tra n sla tio n ” gai yi 改譯, which borders on the totally legitimate practice of “composition” ch u an gzao 創造. In o th e r words, an illegitimate “anarchic translation” can become completely legitimate the minute th e criterio n o f faith fu ln ess is su itab ly severed , b y claim in g an o rig in al co m p o sitio n b ased o n , re-w ritin g, o r im p ro vin g an o rigin al.

The Untranslatability of Poetry

By placing the word “translatability” above the title of this chapter, I do not mean to su ggest th at w e can an sw er o n ce an d fo r all w h eth er p o etry is tran slatab le. S u rely th ere are enough glib over-generalizations on both sides already: w here Shelley hates to sees a delicate violet violently incinerated in a chem ist’s crucible, D ouglas H ofstadter claim s “m y general sen se is th at fo r nearly e v e ry p u n in la n g u a g e X , th e re a re o n e o r m o re v e ry c lo se p u n s in

31 Zhu Guangqian quanji 4 .2 9 9 .

32 Zhou Zuoren 周作人, Zhou Zuoren yiwen quanji 周作人譯文全集 (S h an gh ai: S h an gh ai ren m in chubanshe, 2012): 9.424.

33 Mao Dun 茅盾, “ Z h iy i, sh u n y i, w a iy i” 直譯，順譯，歪譯, Mao Dun wenyi zalun ji 茅盾文藝雜論集 (Shanghai: Shanghai w enyi chubanshe, 1981): 1.412.

156 la n g u a g e Y ” 34 a n d e x c o ria te s N a b o k o v ’s d e c isio n to tra n sla te Eugene Onegin in to E n g lish prose as “absurd,” “irrational,” and “fatuous.”35 N e ith e r re le g a tin g p o e try to th e m y stic a l pedestal of monadism nor blithely declaring verse translation fundam entally possible (given only the translator’s in$nite capacity for cleverness) does justice to the problem . ⌧e only reaso n ab le an sw er to th e q u estio n , “Is p o etry tran slatab le?”, m u st b e “It d ep en d s.”

Speci$cally, it depends on what one considers to be essential in a poem–which can certainly include form al features and sound e9e c ts in a d d itio n to o r in ste a d o f se m a n tic m e a n in g .

⌧roughout our study of modern Chinese poetic form, the question of the essential and the extraneous, and R aym ond W illiam s’s double-reading of the term “form ” as referring to both one and the other, has reappeared alm ost constantly, and no issue involves this binary m ore th an tran slatio n , in w h ich n o n essen tial elem en ts m ay b e su b stitu ted p ro vid ed th at th e essence of the original rem ains intact. ⌧e Iip but fam iliar rem ark of R obert Frost that

“p o etry is w h at gets lost in tran slation” rep resen ts a certain attitu d e to w ard s th is qu estion : if you insist on preserving a poem ’s m eaning in translation from one language to another (that is, tra n sla tio n a s it is c o n v e n tio n a lly k n o w n ), y o u w ill in v a ria b ly sa c ri$c e th e p ro so d ic , paranomastic, connotational elements–aspects of the poem which for Frost and others constitute the poetic function. A lternatives do exist: the avant-garde practice of hom ophonic translation, for exam ple L ouis and C elia Z ukovsky’s translations of C atullus36 o r D a v id

34 Douglas Hofstadter, Le ton beau de Marot: In Praise of the Music of Language (N ew Y o rk : B asicB o o k s, 1 9 9 7 ): 404.

35 Ib id . 2 5 7 .

36 Louis Zukovsky and Celia Zukovsky, trans., Paul Zukovsky, com poser, Catullus Fragmenta (L o n d o n : T u rre t

157 Melnick’s Men in Aida37 (a n u n $n ish e d h o m o p h o n ic tra n sla tio n o f H o m e r’s Iliad in to

English), is radical in its disregard for meaning as the essential property of language, yet at th e sam e tim e it is to tally trad itio n al in its p referen ce fo r th e so n ic elem en ts o f p o etry as constitutive of poetry’s essence.

It is in terestin g th at p o etry tran slatio n s in to C h in ese are extan t fro m as early as th e

Eastern Han Dynasty,38 a n d h u g e n u m b e rs o f B u d d h ist gathas o r ji 偈 were translated from

Sanskrit into unrhym ed Chinese verse, but it was not until the M ay Fourth era that anyone started to w o rry th at p o etry co u ld n o t b e tran slated . It co m es as n o su rp rise th at so m e o f th e loudest w orriers w ere also producing the m ost poetry translations. Z h o u Z u o re n re p e a te d ly disparaged the enterprise of poetry translation, despite translating a huge num ber of poem s fro m a v ariety o f lan g u ag es fo r New Youth 新青年 and other M ay Fourth cultural publications.39 “ P o e try c a n n o t b e tra n sla te d . O n ly th e o rig in a l is a p o e m , a n d w h a te v e r tran slated text exists b esid es is ju st th e exp lan atio n s o f a sch o o lteach er talk in g ab o u t T an g poem s” 詩是不可譯的，只有原本一首是詩，其他的任何譯文都是塾師講唐詩的解

Books, 1969).

37 David Melnick, Men in Aida (B e rk e le y, C a lifo rn ia : T u u m b a P re ss, 1 9 8 3 ).

38 In fact, th e Shuo yuan 說苑 contains a “Yue Song” 越人歌 presum ably translated from the Yue la n g u a g e which Gu Zhengkun 辜正坤 dates to around 540 B.C., but considering only translations for which the original still exists the date is much more recent. See H ai An 海岸, e d ., Zhongxi shige fanyi bainian lun ji 中 西詩歌翻譯百年論集 (S h an gh ai: S h an gh ai w aiyu jiao yu ch u b an sh e, 2 0 0 7 ): ii-iii.

39 See Xiong H ui 熊輝, Wusi yishi yu zaoqi Zhongguo xinshi 五四譯詩與早期中國新詩 (B eijin g: R en m in chubanshe, 2010): 26-7.

158 釋罷了.40 In h is p re fa c e to a tra n sla tio n p u b lish e d in New Youth, Z h o u q u o te s th e m o n k

Kum hrajiva (a.k.a. Jium oluoshi 鳩摩羅什, 3 3 4 -4 1 3 ) to sa y th a t “ T ra n sla tio n is lik e c h e w in g up food to feed som eone else” 翻譯如嚼飯哺人41 and argues that “If you really w ant to tran slate it w ell, yo u h ad b est n o t tran slate it at all” 真要譯得好，只有不譯.42 E v e n in su c h profoundly discouraging language, how ever, we may detect the possibility of a6rm ation: explanations, such as a schoolteacher m ight give, do transm it som ething essential about the original. If som eone is hungry, chew ing the food for him will not destroy its nutritional value

–and someone without the proper linguistic teeth could get food no other way. Later tran slatio n sp ecialists su ch as S ig u o 思果 (a.k .a. C ai Z h u o tan g 蔡濯堂 or Frederick Tsai,

1918-2004) postulate that, while prose texts including literature may be translated, poetry tran slatio n s m u st eith er b e “sep arate creatio n s” 另外創造 or otherwise “lack any m erit at all”

一無所有.43 In p a rtic u la r, th e p ro b le m is p o e try ’s so n ic q u a litie s: p o e try ’s “m u sic a l b e a u ty,” argues Siguo, borrow ing W en Yiduo’s phrase,44 “ is fa ta l to th e tra n sla to r” 單就音樂的美來

說，這就要了翻譯者的命.45 ⌧e u ltim a te q u e stio n , it se e m s, is n o t w h e th e r p o e try m a y b e tran slated after all, b u t w h at is really essen tial ab o u t th e p o em , an d h o w m ay it b e co n veyed ? 40 Zhuo Zuoren yiwen quanji 4 2 5 .

41 Qtd Xiong 28.

42 Ib id .

43 Siguo 思果, Fanyi yanjiu 翻譯研究 (T aip ei: D ad i ch u b an sh e, 1 9 7 2 ): 1 9 6 .

44 See chapter three of this dissertation.

45 Siguo 199.

159 In o th er w o rd s, p o etry is n o t essen tially d i9eren t fro m o th er literary tran slatio n

(p erh ap s even fro m tran slatio n as su ch ); it in vo lves th e sam e d i6culties and com prom ises, ju st p e rh a p s m o re in te n se ly, d e p e n d in g w h o m y o u a sk . Z h e n g Z h e n d u o 鄭振鐸 (1 8 9 8 -

1958) argued in 1921 that poetry was, in fact, fundam entally translatable:

We also must break through the argument that poetry cannot be translated. ⌧e main reasons people claim poetry cannot be translated is that the essence of poetry–its thought and feeling–is in its sound [yinyu n 音韻], th at th e so u n d o f p o etry is th e exp ressio n o f a person’s internal feelings. W e can still resolve this hesitation with what we said above, that th o u g h t an d exp ressio n are sep arate, th at th e sam e th o u g h t can b e exp ressed lin g u istically in more than one way.

詩的不可譯說，也不可不把他打破一下。他們主張詩的不可譯的要點，就在於：詩 的本質－－思想與情緒是在於音韻裡面的；詩的音韻就是人的內部的情緒之表現。 對於這個懷疑，仍舊可以用上面的“思想與‘表白’是分離的，同一的思想可以表 現在一種以上的文字中”的話來解釋他.46

In argu in g th at literary w o rk s, in clu d in g p o etry, can b e tran slated , Z h en g d o es n o t red u ce th e work to its meaning; according to him, translating a poem without preserving its prosody does not mean it becom es prose, since prosody is not an essential feature of poetry. In structuralist terms, the poetic function is not con$ned to meter–Zheng cites Walt Whitman as proof.47 In a n a rtic le fro m ro u g h ly th e sa m e p e rio d , M a o D u n b o rro w s a p h ra se fro m th e

Analects to d e sc rib e p o e try tra n sla tio n : w e m u st “d o it th o u g h w e k n o w it c a n n o t b e d o n e”

知其不能而為之.48 ⌧e Iip sid e o f th is a rg u m e n t w o u ld b e to c o n sid e r th e p ro so d ic a l fo rm to b e in teg ral to th e m ean in g an d th erefo re essen tial to th e w o rk , as Z h u G u an g q ian d o es:

46 Zheng Zhenduo 鄭振鐸, “ Y i w e n x u e sh u d e sa n g e w e n ti” 譯文學書的三個問題, Fanyi yanjiu lunw en ji 69.

47 Ib id . 6 9 -7 0 .

48 Mao Dun 茅盾, “ Y i sh i d e y ix ie y ijia n ” 譯詩的一些意見, Mao Dun wenyi zalun ji 1 .1 2 4 .

160 “W orks of literary value are necessarily com plete, organic wholes; the feeling or thought and th e lan g u ag e o r sty le are fu sed in to o n e, so [th e tran slato r] m u st b e faith fu l to so u n d an d rh yth m at th e sam e tim e” as h e is faith fu l to th e m ean in g 有文學價值的作品必是完整的

有機體，情感思想和語文風格必融為一體，聲音節奏等必同時忠實.49 “ ⌧e re a re so m e w o rk s o f literatu re th at b asically can n o t b e tran slated , esp ecially p o etry. (P eo p le w h o say poetry can be translated probably don’t understand poetry)” 有些文學作品書本不可翻

譯，尤其是詩（說詩可翻譯的人大概不懂得詩）.50 Yet as w e have seen in the previous chapter, Zhu applies the same exact reasoning to prose–the “rhythm of prose” is just as essential to the signi$cance of the w ork. Z hu’s notion of “organicity” seem s to be the su ggestio n th at n o asp ect o f th e w o rk o f literatu re is extran eo u s, th at n o th in g at all m ay b e changed w ithout fundam entally altering the w ork. A s a result, Z hu’s theory easily im plies a rad ical stan ce again st th e p o ssib ility o f literary tran slatio n as su ch .

⌧e slippage from poetry as fundamentally di9erent from other language to poetry as further along on a certain continuum reveals the paradox of declaring poetry untranslatable.

Guo Moruo poses the problem this way in a 1954 article: though he does not declare poetry untranslatable, he cautions, “Foreign poem s translated into Chinese still have to be like poem s” 外國詩譯成中文，也得像詩才行.51 (B ia n Z h ilin la te r re p e a ts th is p re sc rip tio n

49 Zhu Guangqian quanji 4 .2 9 0 .

50 Ib id .

51 Guo Moruo 郭沫若, “ T a n w e n x u e fa n y i g o n g zu o ” 談文學翻譯工作, Renm in ribao 人民日報 (2 9 A u g. 1954), Renm in ribao 1946-2010 dianziban 人民日報 1946－2010 電子版, 2 9 Ju l. 2 0 1 3 . E m p h a sis a d d e d .

161 more tersely as “Translated poems have to be like poems” 譯詩得像詩.52) ⌧e dem and for self-sim ilarity w e saw in G eo rge K ao’s n o te ab o ve h ere reap p ears: a w o rk o f tran slated literature m ust be, $rst and forem ost, a w ork of literature; a translated poem m ust be, $rst and forem ost, a poem . ⌧e question begged by G uo is still w hat, exactly, a poem should be like. T w o divergen t in terpretation s of th is elision are possible: eith er w e are to take ‘poetry’

(sh i 詩) as a u n iversal, ah isto rical co n cep t, resu ltin g in th e tau to lo g ical co n clu sio n th at so m eth in g is a p o em b ecau se G u o M o ru o says it is a p o em ; o r w e m igh t ch aritab ly p o sit a historically-determ ined “poetic function” that may have analogs across languages, the way sp eci$c lexical item s o r gram m atical stru ctu res m ay h ave an alo gs th at p erm it th e very act o f tran slatio n . If th e o rig in al h as featu res th at m ak e it p o etic in th e so u rce lan g u ag e, w e m u st

$nd analogous features to make the translation poetic in the target language. Yet even this more charitable understanding of the demand for poeticity devolves back to the same problem of tautology. ⌧e speci$c implications of how a translated poem is to xiang

(“resem ble”) a poem as such are spelled out to som e extent by G uo: “A poem has a certain metrical structure, a certain prosody, a certain poetic element. If you cancel out all of this, th en w h at g ets tran slated h as n o Iavo r at all. ⌧en it’s n o th in g lik e a p o em ” 可是詩是有一

定的格調，一定的韻律，一定的詩的成成份的。如果把以上這些一律取消，那麼譯

出來就毫無味道，簡直不像詩了.53 G u o g e stu re s in itia lly to w a rd s a d e $n itio n o f p o e tic ity

52 Bian Zhilin, “W usi yilai fanyi duiyu Zhongguo xinshi de gongguo” 五四以來翻譯對於中國新詩的功過 183.

53 “T an wenxue fanyi gongzuo.”

162 grounded in formal elements–metrical structure and prosody–but then, conscious perhaps of overly restricting this de$nition or of opening the grand gates of poetry to undistinguished doggerel, veers back tow ards vague tautology. Having just said that poetry has a “certain poetic elem ent” yiding de shi de chen gfen 一定的詩的成分, G u o im m e d ia te ly d e c id e s th a t th is p o etic elem en t is co m m o n to all literature: “At root, any work–prose, novel, drama– has poetic elem ents. All good works are poem s. One [as a translator] cannot do without poetic training” 本來，任何一部作品，散文，小說，劇本，都有詩的成份，一切好

作品都是詩，没有詩的修養是不行的.54 G u o c o m p a re s th is in e 9a b le lite ra ry q u a lity to th e alco h o lic co m p o n en t o f sp irits: “Y o u can ’t tu rn a g lass o f vo d k a in to a g lass o f tap w ater.

You at least have to trade it for a glass of fen jiu o r maotai to h a v e d o n e y o u r jo b . If it tu rn s in to a glass of w ater, esp ecially if it’s got som e silt on it, th at’s n o good” 一杯伏特卡酒不能

換成一杯白開水，總要還他一杯汾酒或茅台，才算盡了責。假使變成一杯白開水，

裡面還要夾雜些泥沙，那就不行了.55 Ju st a s w ith Z h u Z iq in g , G u o re lie s o n a n essentialized notion of irreducible poeticity that slips quickly into a continuum of literariness, which becomes a property of any language. ⌧ese arguments amount to saying, “Translatable la n g u a g e is tra n sla ta b le , b u t u n tra n sla ta b le la n g u a g e is n o t.”

⌧e conclusion I wish to draw from this discussion is well put by Guo’s fellow

Creation Society member Cheng Fangwu 成仿吾 (1 8 9 7 -1 9 8 4 ). “W h en ever w e co m e to th e

54 Ib id .

55 Ib id .

163 question of whether poetry can be translated, we really have to start by asking, ‘W hat is poetry?’ But this is not something to de$ne super$cially in a few lines–better just to say,

‘P o e try is p o e try ’” 一講到譯詩能不能的問題，實在說起來，我們又非由“甚麼是詩？

”著手研究不可。然而這不是三言兩語所能道盡，而與其對於詩加一些淺薄的界說，

無寧說“詩就是詩”.56 U n c o m fo rta b ly, th e q u e stio n o f h o w p o e try m a y b e tra n sla te d leads backwards to whether poetry may be translated–and from there, we are led to ask what, after all, a poem is, and, implicitly, if a sh i 詩 is a p o e m . ⌧e q u e stio n is c e rta in ly n o t trivial: trad itio n ally, C h in ese h as n u m ero u s categ o ries o f rh y m ed o r m etrical w ritin g in addition to sh i– fo r in stan ce, ci 詞 and fu 賦—th at tro u b le th e assu m ed eq u ivalen ce o f poem and sh i, ju st a s fre e v e rse in F re n c h a n d E n g lish le d C h in e se w rite rs to e x p a n d th e ir de$nition of sh i (a s in Z h e n g Z h e n d u o ’s re a c tio n to W h itm a n a b o v e ).57 ⌧e e sta b lish m e n t o f equivalence betw een ‘poetry’ and sh i u p se ts th e stru c tu re s o f d i9e re n c e o n th e C h in e se sid e ; it seem s p lau sib le th at w h at G u o M o ru o m ean s w h en h e says “tran slated p o em s h ave to b e lik e poem s” is that “translated [W estern] poem s have to be like [W estern] poem s,” even though th at is q u ite th e o p p o site o f th e su rface im p licatio n th at a p o em in th e so u rce lan g u ag e sh o u ld b eco m e a p o em in th e target lan gu age. Is th e p aram o u n t task o f th e p o etry tran slato r to rep licate th e d istin ctive featu res o f th e p o etic fu n ctio n as it exists in th e W estern so u rce la n g u a g e , o r to fu l$ll the poetic function as it exists in the target language, C hinese? W hat

56 Cheng Fangwu 成仿吾, “ L u n y ish i” 論譯詩, Cheng Fangwu wenji 成仿吾文集 (Jinan: Shandong daxue chubanshe, 1985): 121.

57 It g o es w ith o u t sayin g th at th e exp an sio n o f th e categ o ry is n o t exactly recip ro cal: th e existen ce o f fu h a s n o t troubled many Westerners’ understanding of poetry as a category–though perhaps the haiku h a s.

164 happens when the target language is undergoing its ow n transform ations, where translators are not only tasked w ith putting a source poem into C hinese, but rede$ning C hinese itself by virtue of the act of translation?

Lydia Liu asserts that translations are not based on actual equivalences, but on “tropes of equivalence” asserted through acts of translation.58 ⌧e sa m e p rin c ip le h o ld s fo r lin g u istic units other than words, including form al features such as rhym e and meter and the category of poetry which they (m ay) de$ne. ⌧e “certain poetic elem ent” that uni$es the poetry of all nations or all great art, regardless of medium, is illusory–but no more so than any of the other “illusions of which one has forgotten that they are illusions”59 n e c e ssa ry fo r a n y tran slation , or for th e relation of an y on e person’s experien ce to an y oth er’s. ⌧e q u estio n is not whether poetry is uniquely irreducible, but how writers and translators locate its essential properties.

Establishing Formal Equivalences: Early Baihua Poetry Translation and the “Metrical Imaginary”

Besides publishing his experiments in original baihua p o e try in th e 1 9 -te e n s, H u S h i is fu rth e r c re d ite d w ith re v o lu tio n izin g C h in e se p o e try a se c o n d tim e in 1 9 1 9 , b y p ro d u c in g a baihua tra n sla tio n o f S a ra h T e a sd a le’s p o e m “ O v e r th e R o o fs.” H u S h i’s re n d itio n a p p e a rs after Teasdale’s original below .

OVER THE ROOFS

58 Lydia Liu, Translingual Practice: Literature, National Culture, and Translated M odernity, China 1900-1937 (S tan fo rd : S tan fo rd U n iversity P ress, 1 9 9 5 ): 4 0 .

59 Liu 3-4, quoting Nietzsche’s “O n Truth and Falsity in their U ltram oral Sense.”

165 Sara Teasdale (1884-1933)

I said , “I h ave sh u t m y h eart As one shuts an open door, ⌧at Love may starve therein And trouble me no more.”

But over the roofs there came ⌧e wet new wind of May, And a tune blew up from the curb Where the street-pianos play.

My room was white with the sun And Love cried out in me, “I am strong, I w ill break your heart Unless you set me free.”

關不住了！

我說“我把心收起， 像人家把門關了， 叫愛情生生的餓死， 也許不再和我為難了。”

但是屋頂上吹來， 但是五月的濕風，60 一陣陣五月的濕風， 時時從屋頂上吹來； 更有那街心琴調， 還有那街心的琴調 一陣陣地吹到房中。 一陣陣的飛來。

一屋裡都是太陽光， 這時候愛情有點醉了， 他說，“我是關不住的， 我要把你的心打碎了！”61

Hu’s translation is faithful to Teasdale’s original on multiple formal levels. It is lineated like th e o rig in al, w ith th e seco n d an d fo u rth lin e o f each stan za in d en ted ; its p u n ctu atio n m im ics

60 Hu Shi revised the second stanza after the initial publication. I have placed both side by side.

61 Liao Qiyi 廖七一, Hu Shi shige fanyi yanjiu 胡適詩歌翻譯研究 (B eijing: Q inghua D axue chubanshe, 2006): 306-308.

166 th e o rig in al (th o u g h w ith so m e variatio n , fo r in stan ce ad d in g lin e-$nal com m as w here

Teasdale has incorporated enjam bm ent). Hu replicates the ABC B rhym e schem e, notably by em ploying “fem inine” rhym es (w here tw o syllables rhym e and the $nal syllable is unstressed, su ch as guan le/nan le, zui le/sui le, a n d in th e re v ise d v e rsio n , ch u i lai/fei lai). E ach o f th ese features, in fact, requires extending the practice of C hinese-language poetry som ew hat, but the last on e in particular is an extrem ely self-con scious im portation of prosodic categories from E uropean languages. E ven in E nglish, the term “fem inine” refers to gram m atical gender in French, w here fem inine nouns tend to end in an unstressed schw a. For H u to adapt this practice to Chinese means that $rst determ ining that sentence-$nal aspect particles (such as le/lia o 了) and direction m arkers (la i 來) can b e in clu d ed in p o etic lan g u ag e, an alyzin g th ese morphemes as su6xes and not free-standing words, treating them as unstressed, and concluding that they do not need to rhym e on their ow n. Furtherm ore, H u’s revised version of the translation seem s to have been m otivated, not by a desire for im proved accuracy, but in order to use fem inine rhym es in all three stanzas. B y adapting the $rst lin e o f th e e a rlie r version of the stanza (Danshi wuding shang chuilai 但是屋頂上吹來 “But from above the ro o f th ere b lew o ver”) as th e seco n d , rh ym in g lin e o f th e n ew er versio n (Shishi cong wuding sh a n g ch u ila i 時時從屋頂上吹來, “A t tim e s fro m a b o v e th e ro o f b le w o v e r” ), H u consciously decides to place the rhym e on ch u i, n o t la i. P la c in g th e se tw o v e rsio n s sid e b y sid e, it is p o ssib le to see H u re-an alyzin g ch u ilai fro m tw o v e rb s to a v e rb p lu s a su 6x .

“Fem inine” rhym es did have a pre-existing analog in C hinese. See for instance Tang

167 poet Chen Ziang’s 陳子昂 (c. 6 6 1 -7 0 2 ) fo u r-syllab le co u p let, fro m “A u sp icio u s C lo u d s” 慶

雲章:

慶雲光矣，周道昌矣。 qingyun guang yi / Zhoudao chang yi

⌧e auspicious clouds are bright, ⌧e way of Zhou is prosperous.

⌧e $nal syllable of each line of this couplet is the particle yi 矣, a n d th e rh y m e is p la c e d o n th e th ird sy llab le in stead (guang, ch an g); o th er th an th is co u p let, th o u g h , th e p o em co n tain s only end-rhym es. ⌧e “fem inine” rhym es recall sim ilar m etrical structures in the Zhou

Dynasty Book of Odes 詩經, w h e re fo u r-sy lla b le lin e s o fte n rh y m e o n th e th ird sy lla b le , leaving a gram m atical or expressive particle at the end of each line, and m arks this particular couplet, w hich invokes Tang continuity w ith the Z hou, as im portant through its archaism .

Conversely, these four lines of $ve-syllable verse from the seventh of Chen’s poems titled

“Feelings” 感遇 show the m ore usual rhym ing practice from sh i p o e try :

白日每不歸，青陽時暮矣。 Bairi mei bu gui / qingyang shi mu yi. 茫茫吾何思，林臥觀無始。 Mangmang wu he si / lin wo guan wu shi.

⌧e bright sun never comes to earth; now verdant spring has reached its end. What is it that has me lost in thought? I lie beneath the trees and behold the Beginningless.

Chen uses the sentence-$nal perfective particle yi 矣 to em p h asize th e lim ited d u ratio n o f th e sp rin g ; th e e9ect is even m o re d ram atic w h en it is m ad e to rh y m e w ith wushi 無始, th a t which is without beginning (a term which may have Buddhist overtones). ⌧e di9erence is not merely form al, but extends from the form to the range of expressive possibilities: in Hu’s

168 fem in in e en d in g s, a lin e en d in g in le c o u ld o n ly rh y m e w ith a n o th e r lin e e n d in g in le, whereas in parallel couplets, the particle indicating completion is made to rhyme with so m eth in g co n veyin g th e illu so ry n atu re o f all b egin n in gs an d all en d in gs.

⌧ough rhyming exists in many poetic traditions around the world, the speci$cs of how and when it is done are not consistent from tradition to tradition, nor do the relatio n sh ip s o f eq u ivalen ce th at go vern th e p o ssib ility o f rh ym in g fo llo w fro m an y generalizable rule about phonology. ⌧is observation m ay be m aking a rather sim ple correspondence between languages–English and Chinese, for instance–more complicated th an it n eed s to b e, b u t th e d i6cu lty o f tak in g th e ru les o f rh y m e an d m eter fo r g ran ted illustrates the situatedness of poetic form and its constituent categories. H u Shi and the m any other poets translating foreign verse into baihua w e re e sta b lish in g e q u iv a le n c e s o n a fo rm a l level, often by in n ovatin g in the target lan guage itself, an d creatin g the possibility for origin al com position in baihua. ⌧is p ro c e ss u p se ts c o m fo rta b le lite ra ry -h isto ric a l h ie ra rc h ie s b y placing the translation ahead of the original, and Hu Shi’s translation of Teasdale, as the $rst of its kind, puts a relatively undistinguished poem , largely forgotten in its original language, in to a n o rig in a ry ro le in th e C h in e se c o n te x t. B ia n Z h ilin o b se rv e s th a t H u S h i’s tra n sla tio n s were even more successful and inIuential than his original baihua poetry–calling them his

“carelessly plan ted w illow s” (wuxin zhong liu) 無心種柳, a s in th e C h in e se p ro v e rb , “th e

Iowers he cultivated never blossom ed, while the willow s he carelessly planted grew into a

169 canopy” 有心種花花不成，無心插柳柳成蔭.62 In d e e d , baihua h a s so lo n g b e e n th e accepted, appropriate vehicle for poetry translation into C hinese, m etrical translations as w ell as free verse, that the practice of translating into wenyan o r tra d itio n a l v e rse fo rm s th a t existed for several decades around the turn of the tw entieth century seem s absurd now . X iong

Hui’s 熊輝 recen t, co m p reh en sive stu d y Translated Poetry of the M ay Fourth Era and Early

Chinese New Poetry 五四譯詩與早期中國新詩 adopts an evolutionary teleology w hen speaking about the developm ent of baihua p o e try tra n sla tio n :

⌧e curtain had already risen on poetry translation during the late Qing, but the highest achievem ent of translated literature of that period is translated $ction. ⌧e form of translated poetry still gave o9 a strong scent of ‘classical poetry.’ It had not escaped from the rut of trad itio n al p o etry.

詩歌翻譯在清末就已經拉開了序幕，但那時的翻譯文學以翻譯小說為其最高成就的 標誌，譯詩在形式上還散發着濃郁的‘古體詩’味，沒有脫離傳統詩歌的窠臼.63

In X io n g’s lin e o f th in k in g, w h ich accep ts th e M ay F o u rth p arad igm m o re o r less u n critically, th e C h in ese p o etic trad itio n is so m eth in g to b e “escap ed ” fro m (tu oli 脫離), so m e th in g th a t, in fa c t, stin k s. T ra n sla to r a n d c ritic H u a n g G a o x in 黃杲炘 com pares translating into classical C hinese to dressing a foreigner up in a traditional long robe to have him recite xiangsheng 相聲, o r fo rc in g a fo re ig n w o m a n ’s fe e t in to tin y e m b ro id e re d sh o e s.64 ⌧e com parison suggests that C hinese tradition is at best curiously funny and at w orst sham eful

62 “W usi yilai fanyi duiyu Zhongguo xinshi de gongguo” 184.

63 Xiong 23.

64 Huang Gaoxin 黃杲炘, “ Yishi de jinhua: Yingyu shi Hanyi” 譯詩的進化：英語詩漢譯, Zhongxi shige fa n yi b a in ia n lu n ji 中西詩歌翻譯百年論集, e d . H a i A n 海岸 (Shanghai: Shanghai w aiyu jiaoyu chubanshe, 2007): xxii.

170 and inhum ane.

In th e p ro cess o f d e$n in g an yth in g fro m “o ld C h in a” as p ecu liar an d sm elly, baihua becom es som ething neutral, a playing $eld on which Chinese readers may have access to the rest of the world–or at least the West of the world–without the deluding blinders of trad itio n al aesth etic valu es. It is im p o rtan t to n o te th at ad vo catin g baihua, w h e th e r in tran slatio n s o r o rig in al co m p o sitio n s, d o es n o t eq u ate to d isp arag in g C h in ese trad itio n , b u t rath er m erely to relegatin g C h in ese trad itio n al fo rm s to th e realm o f th e p articu lar an d allow ing the W estern form s to achieve universality. C ultural im perialism , in this case, is not viewed as the chauvinistic choice–modern scholars of translation studies often label the late

Qing classical language translations “Sinocentric”65 (wenhua zhongxinzhuyi 文化中心主義, lite ra lly c u ltu re -c e n tric , b u t h e re m e a n in g c u ltu ra lly S in o -c e n tric 66) o r “red u ctive” guihua 歸

化. C o n v e rse ly, a rg u m e n ts in fa v o r o f re tu rn in g to tra d itio n a l v e rse fo rm s fo r tra n sla tio n te n d to h ave a h ig h ly racialized to n e,67 a k in d o f e sse n tia list, p o stc o lo n ia l n e o c o n se rv a tism n o t unlike that of Zheng M in’s critique of the M ay Fourth vernacular literature movem ent.68

65 Xiong 42.

66 All of these terms, including the su6x zhuyi 主義 “-ism ”, acq u ired th eir cu rren t u sage in C h in ese b y translation from W estern languages, and yet they m ay be arranged in C hinese scholarly language in such a way that does not correspond to English usage and resists Iuid translation. In partial rebuttal to George Kao, “E uropeanized C hinese” is a kind of C hinese, not a kind of English.

67 For instance, see Feng Huazhan 豐華瞻, “ T a n y ish i d e ‘g u ih u a’” 談譯詩的歸化, Zhonghua dushu bao 中華 讀書報 (1 0 D ec. 1 9 9 7 ).

68 Zheng Min 鄭敏, “ S h ijim o d e h u ig u : H a n y u y u y a n b ia n g e y u Z h o n g g u o x in sh i c h u a n g zu o ” 世紀末的回 顧：漢語語言變革與中國新詩創作, Jiegou–jiegou shijiao: yuyan, wenhua, pinglun 結構─解構視角： 語言．文化．評論 (Beijing: Qinghua daxue chubanshe, 1998): 91-120. See chapter one of this dissertation.

171 In rejectin g classical C h in ese as in cap ab le o f p ro d u cin g faith fu l tran slatio n s o f

Western poetry, poet-translators set about the work of forging a poetic language that could accom m odate those W estern originals, especially their form al and m etrical features. Since rh ym e sch em es, m eters, p attern s o f asso n an ce an d so o n d o n o t h ave an y sem an tic valu e to speak of, they are not so much translated as adapted–and yet this process of adaptation raises m an y o f th e sam e q u estio n s as tran slatio n d o es, fo r fin d in g “e q u iv a le n c e s” o n a fo rm a l level is no easy task. E ven w hat counts as a rhym e could not be taken for granted in the creation of m odern baihua p o e try : tra d itio n a lly, sy lla b le s n e e d e d to b e lo n g to th e sa m e to n a l category in order to rhym e, w hile baihua poets and translators chose a broader de$nition of rhyming, unconstrained by tonal category–and one cannot help but wonder if Hu Shi and th e o th er early baihua p o e ts p re fe rre d to ig n o re to n e b e c a u se to n e d o e s n o t a 9e c t rh y m e o r meter in Western languages. Even apart from the issue of tone, categories of rhyme are su b ject to th e vagaries o f co n ven tio n as m u ch as actu al p h o n etic valu es. S tartin g in th e seventh century, C hinese poem s rhym ed according to categories laid out in rhym e dictionaries such as the Qieyun 切韻 and Guangyun 廣韻, o r th e m o re re c e n t pingshui yun

平水韻. S ta n d a rd ize d rh y m e d ic tio n a rie s e n su re d th a t p o e ts fro m v a rio u s re g io n a l backgrounds could rhym e consistently, but they also rem oved any necessary c o n n e c tio n between acceptable rhym ing practice and the actual sound of any particular poet’s speech; ju st a s c o n te m p o ra ry re a d e rs o f E n g lish p o e try a re a c c u sto m e d to p e rc e iv in g a rh y m e in

172 “rain” an d “again ,” read ers of classical C h in ese po etry m u st im agin e rh ym es w h ere sp o k en vow el sounds are actually quite di9erent. Poets of the Republican period, m any of whom originated in coastal Southern cities, rhym ed alm ost at random according to Beijing pronunciation, dialect pronunciation, classical rhym e categories, and even the extrem ely

Iexible “thirteen tracks” sh isa n ch e 十三轍 rh ym in g system o f P ek in g O p era.69 ⌧e rh y m e pattern of Teasdale’s “O ver the Roofs,” for instance, is preserved in Hu Shi’s translation, but only if we accept not only its fem inine rhym es, but also the conventional equivalence of vow els in qi 起 and si 死, w h ic h d o n o t a c tu a lly c o n ta in th e sa m e v o w e l in B e ijin g pronunciation.

Modern Chinese is not unique in facing any of these issues: the translation and im p o rta tio n o f fo re ig n m e te rs is a lso a n im p o rta n t issu e in th e h isto ry o f E n g lish v e rse , a s

Chinese writers well know–many critics writing on poetry translation in Chinese refer to

Matthew Arnold’s lectures “On Translating Homer” to argue over the desirability of verse tran slatio n .70 In th o se le c tu re s, A rn o ld c ritic ize s e x istin g tra n sla tio n s o f H o m e r fo r fa ilin g to capture the classical poet’s Iow ing hexam eter, w hich A rnold believed could be the basis for a new national meter, even supplanting iam bic pentam eter.71 C o m p lic a tin g th e issu e is th e fa c t 69 Lloyd Haft, ✏e Chinese Sonnet: Meanings of a Form (L e id e n : R e se a rc h S c h o o l o f A sia n , A fric a n , a n d Am erican Studies, Universiteit Leiden, 2000): 70 et passim .

70 See Chen Xiying 陳西瀅, “ L u n fa n y i” 論翻譯, Fanyi yanjiu lunw en ji 1 3 5 -1 4 3 , a n d Z e n g X u b a i 曾虛白, “Fanyi zhong de shenyun yu da–Xiying xiansheng ‘Lun fanyi’ de buchong” 翻譯中的神韻與達－－西瀅 先生論翻譯的補充, Fanyi yanjiu lunw en ji 150-156.

71 See Yopie Prins, “M etrical Translation: Nineteenth-Century H om ers and the H exam eter M ania,” Nation, Language and the Ethics of Translation, e d . S a n d ra B e rm a n n a n d M ic h a e l W o o d (P rin c e to n : P rin c e to n University Press, 2005): 231.

173 th at E n g lish m eter, u n lik e G reek , is b ased o n q u ality in stead o f q u an tity, an d th at n o o n e in nineteenth-century England could, in fact, say de$nitively how classical Greek verse would have sounded. Nevertheless, there was a pow erful sense that a modern reader who was well enough schooled in H om er could sense its Iow . Sam uel Taylor C oleridge’s nephew , H enry

Nelson Coleridge, said, “It is idle to attempt to lay down rules for the rhythm of the Iliad; th o se w h o h ave read th e p o em , k n o w an d feel, th o u g h can n o t u n d erstan d o r im itate, its incom parable m elody”;72 h e x a m e te r w a s fre q u e n tly c o m p a re d to w a te r Io w in g in stre a m s and oceans or air Iow ing in breezes or hum an breath. Because no one knew how it sounded, poets were free to imagine it as much more melodious than English, unfathom able and in im ita b le . F o r th e se re a so n s, Y o p ie P rin s h a s c o in e d th e te rm “m e tric a l im a g in a ry ” to re fe r to meter not as an objective, material fact of the sound of language, but as a socially mediated, discursive construct, one which was every bit as implicated in the politics of de$ning the modern British nation in an era of empire as it would be in de$ning Chinese nationalism during the M ay Fourth era.

Rather than assuming a transhistorical de$nition of meter as a $xed form that can be tran sp o rted fro m so u rce lan g u ag e to targ et lan g u ag e, w e m ig h t lo o k fo r th e h isto rical tran sfo rm atio n o f m etrical fo rm s th ro u g h tran slatio n , an d so b rin g in to view th e cu ltu ral function of m etrical translation as a com plex m ediation and recirculation of literary form s at a particular m om ent w ithin a particular culture.73

⌧e same principle applies to all the formal features of poetry–rhyme, assonance, tonal regu latio n , p arallelism , an d so o n . W h at co n stitu tes a valid , faith fu l tran slatio n o f a fo reign

72 Quoted Prins 236.

73 Prins 229.

174 poem ? M ust it “be like a poem ” (Guo M oruo) in the target language, and if so, what

“imaginary” preconditions are necessary to make this identity–the translated poem as poem, th e tran slated w o rk o f literatu re as w o rk o f literatu re, th e teth ered co p y as in d ep en d en t original–possible?

If th e d em an d fo r faith fu ln ess is p arad o xical an d fo rm al eq u ivalen ces m u st b e established through practice, rather than inherent sim ilarity, w hat happens w hen a poem from one language is reproduced in an alien meter–in Dryden’s words, “to make Virgil sp eak su ch E n glish as h e w o u ld h im self h ave sp o k en , if h e h ad b een b o rn in E n glan d , an d in th is p resen t ag e”?74 B e fo re H u S h i sta rte d c o m p o sin g baihua tra n sla tio n s, h e a n d o th e rs worked to make Byron speak such Chinese–if not as he would have spoken, but at least as he would have written–if he had been a late Qing poet. Admitting that the de$nition of essential poeticity is arbitrary and that poetic form s are textually constructed w ithout necessary reference to actual speech, we are perm itted to imagine a world of possibilities for verse translation. In the $nal section of this chapter, we will consider H u Shi’s translation of

Byron’s “Isles of Greece” into Chinese using the formal and stylistic conventions associated with Qu Yuan 屈原.

Make It Old

Even more than his English Rom antic contem poraries, George Gordon, Lord Byron

74 Jo h n D ryd en , Virgil: ✏e Aeneid, Translated by John Dryden, With M r. Dryden’s Introduction (N e w Y o rk : ⌧e Heritage Press, 1940) lxi.

175 (1 7 8 8 -1 8 2 4 ), h eld a g reat d eal o f in terest fo r C h in ese read ers, esp ecially th o se co m m itted to th e id eals o f lib erty an d revo lu tio n . B y ro n seem s to in sp ired th e m o st in terest d u rin g tw o highly idealistic periods: the late-Q ing/early-Republican period on the one hand and the early M ao years on the other, just from the publication of translations of “⌧e Isles of

Greece,” a sequence of sixteen six-line stanzas which originally appeared as a digression in

Byron’s mock-epic, Don Juan. ⌧e v e rse s a p p e a r in c a n to III, w h e n , sh ip w re c k e d in th e

Aegean Sea, Juan is cared for by the beautiful Haidee, and they are entertained by “Dwarfs, dancing girls, black eunuchs, and a poet.”75 ⌧e p o e t c h a ra c te r in th is sc e n e is v ic io u sly satirized by Byron as a liar and a mercenary–the couplet “He lied with such a fervour of intention– / ⌧ere was no doubt he earn’d his laureate pension”76 is a ja b a t a n o th e r

“tu rn co at,” 77 th e “ T o ry u ltra -Ju lia n ” a n d p o e t la u re a te B o b S o u th e y (1 7 7 4 -1 8 4 3 ), to w h o m th e en tirety o f Don Juan is sa rc a stic a lly d e d ic a te d .78 N o n e th e le ss, “ ⌧e Isle s o f G re e c e ,” w h ic h is w h a t th e p o e t “ [sa n g ], o r w o u ld , o r c o u ld , o r sh o u ld h a v e su n g , / ... in to le ra b le v e rse ,” 79 is marked by the sincerity of its speaker, as opposed to the relentless irony of the main narration. ⌧e poet, talented if lacking conviction, decries the rule of Greece by the

Ottomans while alluding to the past glories of ancient Greek civilization. ⌧e fact that Byron

75 Don Juan III.6 1 8 .

76 III.6 3 9 -6 4 0 .

77 III. 6 4 1 .

78 “D edication” l. 135.

79 III.7 8 5 -6 .

176 later died of fever w hile on his w ay to aid in the G reek W ar of Independence against the

Turks allows us to take the stanzas even more seriously; further, Byron wrote elegiacally about the T urkish rule of G reece in several of his m ajor w orks.80 A s a w e ll-m e a n in g o p p o rtu n ist who espouses righteous views when it happens to be in his interest to do so, the poet-speaker of “⌧e Isles of Greece” is no worse or better than m ost of the am oral characters in Don Juan

–above all the lover Juan him self, w ho, in his devotion to each successive lover, innocently betrays all of his previous lovers. Like Juan, the poet is guilty of, if anything, a kind of “loyal treaso n ,” 81 th e b e tra y a l o f so m e p rin c ip le s in th e in te re st o f fa ith fu ln e ss to o th e rs. ⌧is condition of m oral relativism is precisely the one inhabited by our translators, the “faithful bigam ists”82 w h o c a n n o t sim u lta n e o u sly m a in ta in to ta l fa ith fu ln e ss to b o th th e so u rc e a n d th e targ et lan g u ag e, b u t w h o “d o it th o u g h t th ey k n o w th ey can n o t.” 83

⌧e sincerity of “⌧e Isles of Greece,” as opposed to the irony of the rest of Don Juan, helped make the passage appealing to idealistic Chinese translators, who viewed Byron as a hero as well as a poet, and who saw clearly the similarities between the crisis of Chinese national shame and the rule of the Ottoman Empire over Greece–which, like China, was a nation that traced its roots to a proud classical tradition. Lu Xun made this connection in his

80 “E re G reece and G recian arts by barbarous hands w ere quell’d” (Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage I.9 5 4 et passim ), “Such is the aspect of this shore– / ‘Tis Greece–but living Greece no more!” (✏e Giaour 9 1 -9 2 ).

81 Don Juan III.8 4 3

82 Barbara Johnson, “Taking Fidelity Philosophically,” DiJerence in Translation, e d . Jo se p h F . G ra h a m (Ith a c a : Cornell University Press, 1985): 143.

83 Byron’s Don Juan a lso c o n sta n tly th e m a tize s m istra n sla tio n , e v e n u sin g th e rh y m e a n d m e te r to fo rc e th e read er in to m isp ro n o u n cin g all o f th e S p an ish n am es.

177 essay on “⌧e Pow er of Mara P o e try ” 摩羅詩力說 which apotheosized Byron as the quintessentially dem onic hero-poet and savior $gure. In L ia n g Q ic h a o ’s 梁啟超 (1 8 7 3 -

1929) A Future History of New China 新中國未來記, w h ic h c o n ta in e d th e $rst p a rtia l translation into C hinese of the poem s, the characters H uang and L i agree upon hearing som eone reciting B yron’s w orks that “⌧ough Byron com posed [✏e Giaour] to sp u r o n th e

Greeks, when we hear it today, it seems like it could be speaking to us Chinese” 他這詩歌，

正是用來激勵希臘人而作。但我們今日聽來，倒像有幾分是為中國說法哩,84 a n d th a t every line in “⌧e Isles of G reece” “seem s like it is speaking to C hinese people of today” 句句

都像是對着現在中國人說一般.85 If B y ro n ’s sp e a k e r, in th e th ird sta n za , “c o u ld n o t d e e m himself a slave,” our Chinese translators can and do–though they are visitors to Byron’s age and language, their identi$cation w ith G reece is m uch m ore direct than Byron’s, w ho deprecates “⌧e Isles of Greece” as nothing but a crow d pleaser that an opportunistic poet could recite to a patriotic G reek audience.

Like the Rubaiyat o f O m a r K h a y y a m (o r m o re p ro p e rly,✏e Rubaiyat of Omar

Khayyam o f E d w a rd F itzG e ra ld ), “ ⌧e Isle s o f G re e c e” w a s tra n sla te d in to C h in e se re p e a te d ly during the twentieth century by a num ber of well-know n poets and translators, under the conventional title “Lam ent for G reece” 哀希臘. A n u m b e r o f baihua tra n sla tio n s, rh y m e d

84 Liang Qichao 梁起超, Xin Zhongguo weilai ji 新中國未來記, Z h o n g g u o jin d a i x ia o sh u o d a x i 中國近代小 說大系 (N anchang: B aihuazhou w enyi chubanshe, 1996): 62.

85 Ib id . 6 2 .

178 and unrhym ed, exist, as w ell as $ve versions in various classical verse form s. Such a profusion of retranslations both de$es and supports the cliché that poetry is untranslatable–“⌧e Isles of Greece” is em inently translatable, but never de$nitively translatable.86 W h e n L ia n g Q ic h a o produced the $rst translations from “⌧e Isles of Greece” in A Future History of New China, he translated using qu 曲 melodies, which he admits prevented him from rendering their meaning exactly. However, he emphasizes in a marginal comment that the task he has undertaken is extrem ely worthw hile.

⌧e author [i.e. Liang] has long aspired to translate the great works of poetry in foreign languages using C hinese tunes. A lthough this is a task of the greatest di6c u lty, if it c o u ld b e achieved, it w ould be a great accom plishm ent in for the literary revolution. I believe that so m e d ay, so m eo n e w ill certain ly d o it. ⌧ese tw o excerp ts are n o m ean feat eith er.

著者常發心欲將中國曲本體翻譯外國文豪詩集。此雖至難之事，然若果有此，真可 稱文壇革命巨現。吾意他日必有為之者。此兩折亦其大.87

Liang’s note expresses quite the opposite of the prevailing post-M ay Fourth assum ption that tran slated poetry should preserve the form al features of the origin al. For L ian g, tran slation into C hinese m eant “using C hinese tunes,” and he hoped the “literary revolution” could

86 I am rem in d ed of a frien d ’s jok e th at q u ittin g sm o k in g w as th e easiest th in g in th e w o rld to d o ; h e’d d o n e it dozens of times.

87 Xin Zhongguo weilai ji 6 3 n .

179 produce many more translations after his model.

Subsequent translators did continue this work, and they shared with Liang his assum ption that a poem translated into C hinese should look like a C hinese poem . Tw o com plete translations of “⌧e Isles of G reece” using classical C hinese verse form s w ould appear during the late Q ing, and tw o m ore w ould follow during the $rst tw o decades of the

Republican period. Ma Junwu 馬君武 (1881-1940) translated the entire sequence into seven -syllab le verse in th e w in ter o f 1 9 0 5 ,88 a n d S u M a n sh u 蘇曼殊 (1 8 8 4 -1 9 1 8 ) retran slated it u sin g eigh t lin es o f $ve-syllab le verse fo r each stan za, p u b lish ed in 1 9 1 1 in h is collection ✏e Sound of the Tides 潮音 and again in 1914 in Selected Poem s of Byron 拜輪詩

選.89 H u S h i, d issa tis$e d w ith th e “e rro rs a n d o m issio n s” (ew u 訛誤) o f M a’s versio n an d th e

“o b scu re diction” (cizh i you h u i 詞旨幽晦) o f b o th M a’s an d S u ’s, u n d erto o k a retran slatio n in

1914 while he was in Am erica, using a freer sa o -style verse (sa o ti 騷體) th at p erm itted lin es and stanzas of unequal length. Finally, H u H uaichen 胡懷琛 (1 8 8 6 -1 9 3 8 ) retran slated th e sixteen -stan za seq u en ce in 1 9 2 3 an d ‘2 4 ,90 b a sin g m u c h o f h is d ic tio n o n H u S h i’s v e rsio n , but condensing it into eight lines of $ve-syllable meter per stanza. Interest in the poem seem s to h ave su b sid ed u n til after th e fo u n d in g o f th e P eo p le’s R ep u b lic in 1 9 4 9 , w h en several

88 Ma Junwu 馬君武, Ma Junwu shi zhu 馬君武詩注 (N anning: G uangxi m inzu chubanshe, 1985): 141.

89 ⌧e existence of editions from 1908 and 1912 has not been veri$ed. See Manshu waiji: Su Manshu bian yi ji siz h o n g 蘇曼殊外集：蘇曼殊編譯集四種, e d . S u S h a o zh a n g 蘇少璋 (B eijin g: X u eyu an ch u b an sh e, 2009): 183. 90 Hu Huaichen 胡懷琛, Hu Huaichen shige conggao 胡懷琛詩歌叢稿 (S h an gh ai: C o m m ercial P ress, 1 9 2 7 ): 125.

180 distinguished translators with considerable scholarly and poetic credentials turned their attention to Byron and his oeuvre. Translation specialist Z hu W eiji 朱維基 (1 9 0 4 -1 9 7 1 ) published a com plete, unrhym ed baihua tra n sla te d o f Don Juan in 1 9 5 8 .91 Z h a L ia n g zh e n g

查良錚 (1 9 1 8 -1 9 7 7 ), p ro li$c as a tran slato r b u t b etter k n o w n b y h is nom de plum e w h e n writing original poetry, Mu Dan 穆旦, c o m p le te d h is rh y m e d , v e rse tra n sla tio n o f Don Juan in 1966, though it lay unpublished until 1980, four years after the Z ha’s death.92 A n o th e r fam ous M odernist poet, B ian Z hilin 卞之琳 (1 9 1 0 -2 0 0 0 ), tran slated ju st “⌧e Isles o f

Greece” for his Selection of English Verse, p u b lish e d in 1 9 8 3 , lik e Z h a u sin g rh y m e d baihua verse.93

⌧e late-Qing wenyan translations of “⌧e Isles of Greece”–Liang’s, Ma’s, and Su’s– true to their reputation, contain a great num ber of “errors and om issions.” E ven in their $n er moments, these translations seem to lend credence to Siguo’s label of poetry translation as

“sep arate creation” (see ab ove); h ow can w e distin gu ish betw een a tran slation pro p er an d a com position based on, or inspired by, Byron’s original? O n the other hand, w e are bound to so m e exten t to tak e th e tran slato rs serio u sly w h en th ey claim th at th eir versio n s are

“translations”–that they are bound by a duty of faithfulness (xin) to the original–a claim to

91 Zhu Weiji 朱維基, tra n s, Tang Huang 唐璜 (Shanghai: Shanghai yiw en chubanshe, 1978).

92 Zhou Yuliang 周與良, " H u a in ia n L ia n g zh e n g " 懷念良錚, Yige minzu yijing qilai 一個民族已經起來, e d . Du Yunxie 杜運燮, Y u a n K e jia 袁可嘉, a n d Z h o u Y u lia n g 周與良 (n .p .: Jian gsu ren m in ch u b an sh e 江蘇 人民出版社, 1 9 8 7 ): 134.

93 ⌧is list is not exhaustive; many subsequent translations have been published, including by Liu Wuji 柳無 忌, G a o Jia n 高健, a n d Y a n g D e y u 楊德豫.

181 be considered that much more seriously in cases, like Liang Qichao’s or Hu Huaichen’s, where the English original appears alongside the translation, or where the translation is accom panied by an invitation to com pare it w ith other versions. Furtherm ore, none of the tran slato rs after L ian g is sh y ab o u t b o rro w in g lan g u ag e fro m p revio u s tran slatio n s th at th ey feel is apt; H u Shi’s eighth stanza is openly m odeled on M a Junw u’s version,94 w h ile H u

Huaichen’s version contains much of the same language as Hu Shi’s. Even as each subsequent translator m akes countless artistic choices, their prefaces and m arginalia m ake frequent referen ce to th e in accu racies o f th e p revio u s versio n s: w e h ave m en tio n ed L ian g Q ich ao’s com plaint that he could not alw ays render the m eaning accurately, w hile M a Junw u expresses regret th at L ian g w as n o t h im self co m p eten t in E n glish ; H u S h i refers to th e sh o rtco m in gs o f previous versions as justi$cation for their retranslations, while Hu Huaichen invites the read er to co m p are an d d ecid e fo r h im self w h ich h e p refers. A m o d el em erges o f retran slatio n as a gradual re$nem ent, a journey tow ards perfection, w herein in$delities constitute stum bles along the w ay. O n the one hand, the “errors and om issions” often reIect the context of the tran slatio n , th e p o litical an d cu ltu ral clim ate o f th e tran slato rs (th em selves im p o rtan t authors).95 O n th e o th e r h a n d , e v e n th e le a st a c c u ra te o f tra n sla tio n s is a n a tte m p t to rep resen t th e o rigin al faith fu lly, an d m u st b e ju d ged acco rd in gly.

We have already considered Hu Shi as the progenitor of original baihua p o e try a n d o f

94 Hu Shi riji quanji 1 .2 7 5 .

95 See Liao Q iyi 廖七一, “ L u n M a Ju n w u y i ‘A i x ila g e’ zh o n g d e ‘e’” 論馬君武譯哀希臘歌中的訛 in Zhongguo fanyi 中國翻譯 27.4 (July, 2006) 27-31.

182 baihua p o e try tra n sla tio n , b u t h e w a s a lso th e wenyan p o e try tra n sla to r to su g g e st th e m o st prom ising possibilities for wenyan a s a m e d iu m o f tra n sla tio n . Hu Shi translated “⌧e Isles of

Greece” using the allometric meters of the Songs of Chu 楚辭, o f w h ic h D a v id H a w k e s describes two: the “song style” and the “sa o sty le .” In th e fo rm e r, a lin e c o n sists o f tw o tw o - or three-syllables hem istiches with an unstressed $ller syllable, xi 兮, d iv id in g th e m . ⌧u s, th e so n g sty le co u p let is: X X (X ) xi X X / X X (X ) xi X X, with the rhyme falling on the last syllab le o f each co u p let. ⌧e sa o sty le m e te r, n a m e d fo r th e Li sao 離騷 which employs it, is lik e a d o u b le lin e o f so n g sty le c o n n e c te d b y a xi, h o w e v e r m a k in g u se o f o th e r u n stre sse d particles (m arked 0) in between the hem istiches within each line: X X X 0 X X xi / X X X 0

X X, again with the rhyme on the last syllable of the couplet.96 S o m e o th e r p a rts o f Songs of

Chu, su c h a s th e “ H y m n to th e O ra n g e” 橘頌, m ix fo u r- a n d th re e -sy lla b le lin e s, e n d in g with a “feminine rhyme”: X X X X / X X X xi.97 H u S h i u se s a ll o f th e se in h is tra n sla tio n , often m ixing them together. ⌧e length of Hu’s stanzas is quite variable, ranging from 44 characters (stanzas $ve and $fteen) to 62 (stanza one), w ith an average of about 51 characters per stanza. For com parison, the $ve-syllable verse chosen by Su M anshu and Hu Huaichen only allow s 40 characters per stanza; M a Junw u’s stanzas range from 45 to 73.

Hu attributed the success of his translation in part to his scrupulousness and in part to th e Iexib ility o f th e m eter h e em p lo yed :

96 See David H aw kes, Ch’u Tz’u: Songs of the South (O x fo rd : O x fo rd U n iv e rsity P re ss, 1 9 5 9 ): 4 -7 .

97 ⌧ese diagrams and explanations are based on notes from Stephen Owen’s History of Chinese Literature course.

183 I sp en t fo u r seaso n s’ w o rth of en ergy tran slatin g th is p o em in its en tirety, an d I co n sid er it to be superior to the translations of M a and Su. One reason is that the form I em ployed is looser an d m ore relaxed; an other is that I didn’t dare to om it an ythin g of the spirit of the original, and I turned every which way to attain it. As for the m eaning of the original, that goes without saying. Anyone who can read the original can know for him self that I am not ju st b lo w in g m y o w n h o rn .

此詩全篇吾以四時之力譯之，自視較勝馬蘇兩家譯本。一以吾所用體較恣肆自如， 一以吾於原文神情不敢稍失，每委屈以達之。至於原意，更不待言矣。能 讀原文者， 自能知吾言非自矜妄為大言也.98

Yet there is m ore to the Songs of Chu m e te r th a n its Ie x ib ility ; th e re p e a te d n o n se n se character xi, little e m p lo y e d in o th e r sty le s o f C h in e se v e rse , a d d s a n a ir o f a rc h a ism , w h ile any allusion to the Songs of Chu o r Li sao im m e d ia te ly c a lls to m in d th e e x ile d , ill-fa te d p o e t

$gure, Qu Yuan. Aside from both meeting their deaths by drow ning, Byron and Qu Yuan composed their great works during travels abroad–and by writing Byron’s poem into the

Songs of Chu m e te rs, H u m a y b e su g g e stin g th a t B y ro n is m o ra lly u n im p e a c h a b le a s w e ll, c a st out of a corrupt political system (Regency England) to die abroad. In his note to the $fth stan za, H u w rites,

I p articu larly like th is stan za. I feel it h as a n o b le an d so rro w fu l air. ... ⌧e seco n d lin e, ‘A n d where art thou, my Country?’ can only be translated with the sa o fo rm , o th e rw ise it c a n n o t express the m ood of calling to one’s hom eland and questioning it.

此章譯者頗自喜，以為有變徵之聲也。⋯⋯。第二句原文：“And where art thou, my Country?”，非用騷體不能達其呼故國而問之之神情也.99

⌧e Songs of Chu m e te rs d o m o re th a n a llo w a v a ria b le n u m b e r o f sy lla b le s a n d lin e s; th e y de$ne a relationship to one’s native land. Qu Yuan left the court of Chu to lam ent it in verse;

Byron and the poet-speaker of “⌧e Greek Isles” have a similar relationship to England and 98 Hu Shi riji quan ji 2 7 8 -2 7 9 .

99 Hu Shi riji quan ji 2 7 4 .

184 Greece. Living abroad in New York City, Hu Shi could no doubt identify with all of these

$gures.

Hu Shi considered his translation of the $fteenth stanza to be the most successful of th e en tire p iece:

Fill high the bow l with Sam ian wine! O u r v irg in s d a n c e b e n e a th th e sh a d e – I see th eir gloriou s b lack eyes sh in e; B u t g a zin g o n e a c h g lo w in g m a id , My own the burning tear-drop laves, To think such breasts must suckle slaves.

注美酒兮盈杯！ 美人舞兮低徊！ 眼波兮盈盈， 一顧兮傾城； 對彼美兮， 淚下不能已兮； 子兮子兮， 胡為生兒為奴婢兮！

(P o u r th e $n e w in e, ah , $ll th e cu p s! ⌧e beauties dance, ah, sentimentally! ⌧e light of their eyes, ah, brims over, One glance, ah, would topple a city; Facing their beauty, ah, My tears fall and I cannot stop them, ah; My dear, my dear, Why must your children be slaves?)

Hu’s translation combines four lines of the song-style meter with two lines (lineated as four) of the sa o -style. ⌧ro u g h o u t th e stan za, w e can see alm o st u n avo id ab le traces o f in tertextu al reso n an ce w ith th e C h in ese trad itio n . ⌧e city-to p p lin g glan ce, a co m m o n p lace in co llo q u ial sp eech as w ell as literary lan gu age, h as its o rigin s in th e so n g w ritten b y L i Y an n ian 李延年 praising his sister; when Em peror W u of the Han 漢武帝 heard the song, he dem anded to

185 meet the woman who inspired it:

北方有佳人，絕世而獨立。 一顧傾人城，二顧傾人國。

In th e n o rth th ere is a b eau tifu l lad y; sh e stan d s alo n e in th e en tire age. One glance would topple men’s cities, a second glance would topple men’s nations.

Meanwhile, the description of the dancing maidens recalls similar topics from Song ci 詞.

⌧e reduplicative compound yingying 盈盈 (w h ich I h ave tran slated “b rim s o ver”) is u sed to describe a beautiful lady viewed from afar in one of the most fam ous poem s in the tradition, th e seco n d o f th e N in eteen O ld P o em s 古詩十九首 (“G reen are th e grasses by th e river” 青

青河畔草). ⌧e seven th lin e (w h ich I h ave tran slated “M y d ear, m y d ear,” as it is an exclam ation that includes the character zi 子, o r c h ild ) is a q u o ta tio n fro m th e Book of Odes; it appears as a refrain in a poem num ber 118 (Choumou 綢繆). Such em beddedness in a trad itio n is w h at m ad e M ay F o u rth w riters feel th at wenyan w a s n o t a su ita b le m o d e fo r translation–these subtle allusions are the “scent of classical poetry,” perhaps, for which wenyan is d e n ig ra te d .

On the other hand, Hu’s translation does more than just turn Byron’s poetry into musty, old Chinese poetry, for his use of the Chinese tradition is also novel. ⌧e Book of Odes piece referred to, Choumou, w h ic h is c o n v e n tio n a lly u n d e rsto o d a s re fe rrin g to m a rita l harm ony, can only signify ironically here: the speaker in Byron’s original gazes at the maidens’ breasts only to imagine the enslaved children they will some day suckle. Hu’s

186 quotation Zi xi zi xi 子兮子兮 tran slates n o p art o f B y ro n ’s o rig in al d irectly, b u t b y allu d in g iro n ic a lly to th is p o e m in h is tra n sla tio n o f th is sta n za , H u S h i m a n a g e s to re p ro d u c e so m eth in g o f th e h o rro r th at B yro n ’s sp eak er felt b y p erversely co n ju rin g th e in tertextu al associations internal to the C hinese tradition.

⌧rough intertextual illusion, Hu Shi is able to place two extremely divergent trad itio n s in to d ialo g . H e h as en d eavo red to u se th e p o etic rep erto ire availab le to h im to preserve the essence of the poem–its tone of elegiac reproach, its focus on the maidens’ gaze, the scene of drinking and debauchery–to change what he had into what he lacked.

Moreover, he translated the poem in such a way that it “resembled a poem,” following a certain repertoire of form al conventions that had existed in C hina up to that point. ⌧e practice calls to mind an extrem ely provocative point from David Dam rosch’s What is World

Literature, c o n c lu d in g a d isc u ssio n o n tra n sla tio n s o f K a fk a : “ F o r a n A m e ric a n a u d ie n c e , a logical analogue to the Prague Jew w ould be the inner-city A frican A m erican. ... ⌧e reso u rces o f B lack E n glish co u ld very read ily b e em p lo yed to ren d er K afk a’s u ses o f in -gro u p vocabulary and his dialectical spellings and contractions.”100

⌧e reason Damrosch’s suggestion is so provocative is that European Jews and African

100David Damrosch, What is World Literature? (P rin c e to n : P rin c e to n U n iv e rsity P re ss, 2 0 0 3 ): 2 0 3 .

187 Am ericans each possess histories of unique and irreducible traumas so horrifying that to com pare them , at least to a self-consciously politically-correct A m erican such as m yself, is to violate their essential self-sam eness. And yet, such an objection is not entirely di9erent from objecting to poetry translation on the grounds that poetic usage is unique and particular to a given tradition, som ething which cannot be exchanged on any m arket for any price. Leaving traum a behind, the possibilities im plied by D am rosch’s suggestion to render K afka in A frican

Am erican Vernacular English are limitless. If we are willing to accept that faithfulness is an im possible task and that no translation can ever be de$n itiv e , th e n w e w ill n o t b e o 9e n d e d by hearing Qu Yuan’s voice com ing from Byron’s mouth.

188 Chapter 5 Ico n icity

⌧e Analog Poet: Hsia Yü Enters the Digital Age

“⌧e serious artist is the only person able to encounter technology w ith im punity, ju st b e c a u se h e is a n e x p e rt a w a re o f th e c h a n g e s in p e rc e p tio n .” Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media

It g o es w ith o u t sayin g th at th e artist’s to o ls in Iuence the w ork that she produces.

Scholars such as M ichel Hockx have done excellent studies on online literary com m unities and the patterns of distribution and reception that characterize C hinese “w eb literature”

(wangluo wenxue/wanglu wenxue 網絡文學/網路文學),1 b u t th e re is a lso th e q u e stio n o f how interacting with the com puter as a writing tool inIuences the decisions made by the writer, an inIuence which may be highly personal and di9erent in every case. Contemporary

Taiwanese poet Chen Li 陳黎 (b . 1 9 5 4 ), fo r o n e, p u b lish ed a co llectio n in 2 0 1 1 , en titled My

City (o r I/C ity) 我／城, w h ic h h e d e sig n e d to b e a “c o lle c tiv e h o m e p a g e” 一個集體的

Homepage（家頁）.2 H is “p o stfa c e” to th e c o lle c tio n g iv e s a g o o d a c c o u n t o f th e relationship betw een poet and com puter:

I p ro b ab ly started to u se a co m p u ter to w rite startin g in aro u n d 1 9 9 3 . A s m y creative to o l 1 See M ichel H ockx, “V irtual Chinese Literature: A Com parative Case Study of O nline Poetry Communities,” ✏e China Quarterly 1 8 3 (S e p . 2 0 0 5 ) 6 7 0 -6 9 1 ; M ic h e l H o c k x , “ L in k s w ith th e P a st: Mainland China’s Online Literary Communities and ⌧eir Antecedents,” Journal of C ontem porary C hina 13.38 (2004) 105-127. See also M ichael Day, “Introduction: Contem porary Chinese Poetry and Literature on the Internet,” Digital Archive for Chinese Studies Leiden Division, 5 D e c 2 0 0 3 , w e b , 2 4 Ju n e 2 0 1 3 .

2 Chen Li 陳黎, “ H o u ji: w o d a o /w o c h e n g ” 後記:我島／我城, Wo/cheng 我／城 (Taipei: E ryu w enhua, 2011): 231.

189 transitioned from a pen to a keyboard and I spent each day staring at a W ord docum ent or web browser, the icons for cut, copy, paste, all the writing aids in the “tools” menu, the “insert” m enu, the “form at” m enu, softw are like im age brow sers, sound players, or online tran slators...m y creative process h as also been in Iu en ced . ... W ritin g o n a co m p u ter is convenient for editing, copying, and m oving text, and for precise calculation and arrangem ent of the num ber of lines or w ords. O bviously it helps the w riter experim ent, to to u ch o n n ew p o ssib ilities. ... N atu rally, th ere are so m e in Iuen ces w hich aren’t so extern al or direct, which are more hidden, or which are internalized into a part of our way of thinking.

我大約從 1993 年左右開始使用電腦寫作，隨著創作工具由筆寫轉成鍵盤鍵入，日 日面對「WORD文件」或「網頁瀏覽器」上，剪下、複製、貼上……等圖示，工具列、插入 列、格式列裡種種書寫輔助，以及圖片瀏覽器、影音播放器、線上翻譯等電腦軟體， 創作方法自然會受影響。 ⋯⋯電腦書寫易於修改、複製、搬動，精確計算、安排字數 行數等特性，顯然有助於寫作者試驗、探觸新可能。 ... 自然，有些影響並不見得那 麼外在、直接，而是比較幽微，或說已內化成為思考模式的一部分.3

In the Chinese case, the input method itself–the way keystrokes or touch-screen gestures are translated into characters by the software–may lend itself to certain operations. An obvious exam ple is C hen’s “A Love Poem I M is-typed Because I W as Sleepy” 一首因愛睏在輸入時

按錯鍵的情詩, w h ic h c o n ta in s lin e s lik e : “ I m iss th o se w e t so n g s w e u se d to sin g to g e th e r lu stfu lly ” 我想念我們一起淫詠過的那些濕歌. (O u r sle e p y p o e t a c c id e n ta lly ty p e d yinyon g 淫詠 “sin g lu stfu lly” fo r yinyon g 吟詠 “to ch an t” an d sh ige 濕歌 “wet songs” for sh ige 詩歌 “poem s.”)4 ⌧is p o e m w a s w ritte n in 1 9 9 4 , b u t its c o n tin u e d re le v a n c e is evidenced by its inclusion in the C hinese language section of the 2012 Taipei Secondary

School Transfer Students Com m on Exam ination (with the question, “H ow many mis-typed

3 Ib id . 2 3 1 -2 .

4 ⌧e poet here was using a phonetic input method. Other methods of Chinese input would lend themselves to o th er k in d s o f asso ciatio n s. W e w ill retu rn to th e q u estio n o f C h in ese lan g u ag e text in p u t at th e en d o f th is ch ap ter.

190 characters are there altogether?” 共按錯了幾個字？).5 C h e n L i’s p la y fu l g a m e a le rts u s to th e in teractio n b etw een u ser an d m ach in e, an d to th e w ay s th at o u r lim ited co n tro l o ver machines can reIect our limited control over our own subconscious desires–in this case, the rep ressed sexu al co n ten t o f th e lo ve p o em is m ad e exp licit.

As Chen mentions, computer writing is advantageous for editing, copying, and moving text–something it owes to its use of digital representation and storage, as opposed to th e an alo g sy stem s o f th e m aterial w o rld . ⌧e d i9eren ce betw een an alog an d digital lies at th e h eart o f th e tran sitio n to a literatu re o f th e co m p u ter. “N o tw o categories,” w rites

Canadian communications theorist Anthony Wilden, “and no two kinds of experience are more fundamental in human life and thought than continuity and discontinuity, the one fu ll, co m p lete, co m p act, d en se, an d in $n itely d iv isib le, th e o th er p artial, in term itten t, atom ic, discrete, and not divisible beyond the individual units that m ake it up.”6 ⌧e distinction between continuity and discontinuity is realized in representational system s as analog versus digital: analog representations are continuous, a question of “m ore-or-less,” whereas digital representations are discontinuous, a question of “either/or” or “all-or-none.”7

⌧e implications of this di9erence for the dissemination of information are profound. Many attributes of spoken language m ake it by nature a digital system : continuous stream s of

5 Chen Yapeng 陳雅芃, “ Q in g sh i g a ic u o ti d a i x in g a n sh i? Y o u re n x iu y o u re n tin g ” 情詩改錯題帶性暗示？ 有人羞有人挺, Lianhe xinwen wang 聯合新聞網, 28 July 2012, web, 28 June 2013.

6 Anthony Wilden, ✏e Rules Are No Game (N e w Y o rk : R o u tle d g e , 1 9 8 7 ) 2 2 2 .

7 Ib id .

191 so u n d s are d ivid ed m en tally in to d iscrete p h o n em es ch aracterized b y d istin ctive featu res

(voiced/unvoiced, long/short, etc.) w hich are understood by the hum an language faculty to be either present or absent. W ritten language no less is com posed of discrete signs. Hence language may be repeated or recopied with perfect accuracy–at least, if it is the content which is desired. Once language is not only writing but a signature, not only speech but a voice, we are dealing in analog codes–continuous gradations of sound or form–and rep ro d u ctio n is n o lo n ger p o ssib le w ith o u t exp erien cin g so m e lo ss. O n e o f th e m ajo r e9ects of the so-called Digital Revolution, one whose ram i$cations are still playing out, is that all kinds of visual or sonic inform ation, which had previously existed m ainly in analog codings, are now coded digitally, such that the discrete units used (“sam ples”) m ay exceed the lim its of perceptibility. ⌧is means that not only is there no limit to the num ber of copies that can be made of an original (which had always been the case in printmaking, casting, etc.), but there is no lim it to the num ber of generations of copies either. “From the photographic negative, for exam ple, one can m ake any num ber of prints,” argues W alter B enjam in; “to ask for the

‘authentic’ print m akes no sense.” 8 H e n c e m e c h a n ic a l re p ro d u c tio n is sa id to e ro d e th e a u ra of the original. But Benjam in overlooks the hierarchy between successive generations of rep ro d u ctio n : an y p rin t, in fact, lo ses so m eth in g o f th e n egative; an d th e p rin t itself m ay n o t be copied without further loss. ⌧e digital image may be copied, and each of its copies may be copied–and never will any of the copies show any di9erence. In the computer age, there

8 Walter Benjamin, “⌧e Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” in Illu m in ation s (N e w Y o rk : Shocken Books, 1969): 224.

192 is n o n e c e ssa ry d i9erence betw een original and copy at all.

Contemporary Taiwanese poet Hsia Yü (X ia Y u 夏宇, b . 1 9 5 6 )9 has made a career of transform ing copies into originals, w hether through appropriation or parody, collage or misquotation. Her books are three-dimensional pieces of design such that the poems always lose som ething in transcription or re-printing; she m akes a point of subtly im proving each collection as it is reprinted, gesturing at uniqueness even in an im m anently reproductive medium. Her works frequently bear the traces of her own imperfect handiwork, for instance in her cut-up and reassem bled collection of collage poetry, Friction/Indescribable 摩擦·無以

名狀 (1 9 9 5 ), o r o th erw ise in h er p rim itivist p ain tin g s an d d raw in g s o r o 9-k ilter, b lu rry photography, which appear on book covers or on plates am id the text. Her interest in tech n o lo g ies o f rep ro d u ctio n is an attack ag ain st n o tio n s o f th e p o et as creative g en iu s, b u t her obsession with the imperfect copy is an e9ort to introduce random ness, hum anity, and su b jectivity b ack in to art. Y et as w ith o th er avan t-gard e gestu res, fo r in stan ce th e d em an d to erase the distinctions betw een art and life or betw een high art and popular culture, the im p o rta n c e o f th is te n sio n , its p o te n tia l fo r g e n e ra tin g sh o c k , is p re m ise d o n th e v e ry distinction it appears to transgress. ⌧ere is no scandal in prom oting the copy over the original if the two are indistinguishable–and this distinction is eroded with every further miniaturization of digital storage, every incursion of wireless networks into new territory,

9 I h ave ch o sen to ro m an ize H sia Y ü’s penname according to the Wade-Giles system rather than Hanyu Pinyin not only because the former is still very common in Taiwan, but because she signs her own written correspondence “HY.”

193 every new handheld device em bedded w ith m icroprocessors and capable of recording, sto rin g, an d tran sm ittin g im ages, texts, so u n d s, an d m o vies. D igital m ed ia circu late w ith increasing disregard for tim e and space, even for virtual storage “space”; w e already $n d ourselves in a world where Paul Valéry’s prophesy has com e true: “Just as w ater, gas, and electricity are brought into our houses from far o9 to satisfy our needs in response to a minimal e9ort, so we shall be supplied with visual or auditory images, which will appear and disappear at a simple movem ent of the hand, hardly more than a sign.”10 It is p o ssib le th a t th an k s to cellu lar sm artp h o n es an d satellite sig n als, th e availab ility o f d ig ital m ed ia h as already exceeded that of clean w ater or heating fuel in term s of geographical reach.

Poetry as Icon

Ever since her $rst poetry collection, Memoranda 備忘錄, w a s p u b lish e d in 1 9 8 4 ,

Hsia Yü has stood at the forefront of experimental poetry in Taiwan. For contemporary

Taiwanese critics, Hsia Yü has represented no less than the advent of the postmodern age in

Taiwanese cultural production;11 X ia’s p o e try h a s b e e n n o te d fo r its “u n a b a sh e d lin g u istic

10 Quoted in Benjamin 2 1 9 .

11 See Lin Yaode 林燿德, “ Jim u w a n to n g ” 積木頑童, Yiijiusijiu yihou 一九四九以後 (T aib ei: E rya chubanshe, 1986): 127-140; Luo Q ing 羅青, Shenm e shi houxiandaizhuyi 什麼是後現代主義 (T aib ei: Wusi shudian, 1989); Meng Fan 孟樊, “ T a iw a n h o u x ia n d a i sh i d e lilu n y u sh iji,” 台灣後現代詩的理論與 實際, Dangdai Taiwan wenxue pinglun daxi 當代台灣文學評論大系 (Taibei: Z hengzhong shudian, 1993): 215-290; Liao Xianhao 廖咸浩, “ W u zh izh u y i d e p a n b ia n ” 物質主義的叛變, Ai yu jiegou: dangdai Taiwan wenxue pinglun yu wenhua guancha 愛與解構：當代台灣文學評論與文化觀察 (Taibei: Lianhe w enxue chubanshe, 1995): 132-171; etc.

194 terro r[ism ]” 不折不扣的恐怖[主義],12 “p h ilo so p h ic a l a n a rc h y ” 思考的安那其,13 a n d th e

“p rovo cation [it] aim s at th e h egem o n y of w ritten lan gu age system s” 將矛頭對準文字系統

霸權的挑釁;14 it h a s b e e n d e sc rib e d a s “m e ta -p o e try ” 後設詩15 or “deconstructive poetry”

解構詩16 and draw n com parisons to Laozi, Z huangzi, C han Buddhism , N ietzsche, and

Derrida.17 W ithout ourselves resorting to sim ilar hyperbole, w e m ay still observe that H sia

Yü’s poetic experimentation–her deployment of collage and procedural writing techniques, her playful appropriation of non-literary or popular textual elem ents, her penchant for concrete poetic forms–calls starkly into question popular contemporary assumptions in

Taiwan and China about the $gure of the poet (traceable to the May Fourth reception of

Western Romanticism) and poetry (inherited from an even older lyrical tradition stretching back to the perennially cited form ula, “⌧e poem articulates what is on the mind intently”

詩言志,18 fro m th e Book of Documents 書經). E ach subsequent collection has taken m ore risk s an d exp lo red m o re fertile exp erim en tal gro u n d , as Ventriloquy 腹語術 (1 9 9 1 )

12 Liao 169.

13 Ib id .

14 Lin 135.

15 Wan Xuting 萬胥婷, “ R ic h a n g sh e n g h u o d e jix ia n ” 日常生活的極限, Shanggong ribao Chunqiu fukan 商 工日報春秋副刊, November 24, 1985.

16 Lin 138.

17 Lin 137.

18 Stephen O w en, Readings in Chinese Literary ✏ought (Cambridge, Mass.: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1992): 2 6 .

195 incorporated an even m ore radically stream -of-consciousness style, interpolated im ages into the text, appropriated found texts, and even featured a poem m ade of original, m eaningless

Chinese characters; and Friction/Indescribable w a s c o m p o se d b y c u ttin g u p a n d re a sse m b lin g

Ventriloquy. 1 9 9 9 ’s Salsa (title in W e ste rn sc rip t) se e m e d to ta k e a ste p b a c k , e m p lo y in g mostly longer free verse forms without expanding on the compositional experiments of

Ventriloquy a n d Friction/Indescribable. In 2 0 0 7 , th o u g h , H sia Y ü $n a lly o u td id h e rse lf, w ith a com pletely conceptual volum e of “pseudo-poetry” or “non-poetry”19 a b so lu te ly im p o ssib le to understand in term s of the Rom antic subject or “the poem articulates what is on the mind in te n tly,” w ith th e b ilin g u a l title Pink Noise 粉紅色噪音.20

⌧e book itself, printed entirely on transparent celluloid,21 is a lso b ilin g u a l: e a c h o f th e th irty -th ree p o em s in clu d ed ap p ears $rst in E n g lish , left-ju sti$ed an d u sin g b lack in k , and then on the follow ing page in C hinese translation, right-justi$ed and using pink ink.

⌧e material form of the book presents two immediate barriers to reading, $rst that without som ething opaque to place behind each page, the w ords appear as an im penetrable jum ble

(h ere w e reco g n ize th e p ro m ised “n o ise”); seco n d , th at th e cellu lo id itself, in ad d itio n to being transparent, is also highly reIective, meaning that the would-be reader must go to great

19 “A -W en g w en sh i” in Xianzai shi 04 (2 0 0 6 ) 4 2 .

20 Since Pink Noise, H sia Y ü h a s c o n tin u e d to p u b lish c o lle c tio n s th a t c h a lle n g e b o u n d a rie s: in 2 0 1 0 , sh e released tw o co llectio n s o f so n g lyrics ✏is Zebra 這隻斑馬 and ✏at Zebra 那隻斑馬, b o th w ith u n u su a l, avant-garde book design, and in 2011 she put out the collection Sixty Poem s 詩六十首, w h ic h fe a tu re s a scratch -o 9 cover so that each reader can design her ow n cover art.

21 Ding Wenling 丁文鈴, “ H sia Y ü sh iji F e n h o n g se za o y in fa n g sh u i fa n g za o y in ” 夏宇詩集粉紅色噪音防水 防噪音, Zhongguo shibao 中國時報, 1 6 S e p . 2 0 0 7 : A 1 4 .

196 len gths to avoid seein g bright lights or even his or her ow n face reIected back, in stead of the words. It was these two features, above all else, that led one internet commentator to label

Pink Noise “a n ti-re a d in g ” 反閱讀.22 ⌧e n a g a in , e v e n w h e n th e re a d e r h a s so lv e d th e se tw o in itia l im p e d im e n ts, th e te x t d o e s n o t re v e a l itse lf re a d ily. F o r o n e th in g , th e C h in e se - sp eak in g read er w ill $n d th at th ese tran slatio n s are q u ite u n u su al, alm o st u n read ab le; th e read er d isco vers w ith th e h elp o f th e exp lan atio n o n th e b o o k’s tran sp aren t p lastic slip co ver th at th e E n g lish p o em s in Pink Noise w e re tra n sla te d in to C h in e se n o t b y a h u m a n b e in g , b u t by a com puter program called Sherlock, which, needless to say, has made countless gram m atical and lexicographic, not to m ention idiom atic, errors, som e of them quite hilarious. ⌧e English-speaking reader further $nds that the English originals are rather stran ge, alm o st n o n sen sical th em selves, an d yet again w e are in fo rm ed b y th e slip case th at

Hsia Yü did not write these herself, but rather assembled them out of texts she found on the internet–texts which, in most (though not all) cases, bore little resemblance to poetry in the

$rst place. At this point we might well share poet A-W eng’s 阿翁 exasperation w hen he asks, in an interview reprinted at the end of the volum e’s second edition, exactly w hat role H sia Yü played in the com position of these poem s. (H sia Yü’s response, “I found a form for them ,” will be discussed further below.) Hsia Yü’s poetry had long challenged preconceived notions about poetic creation, but certainly never to this extent; even Friction/Indescribable had used so u rce m aterials o rigin ally co m p o sed b y H sia Y ü w h ich w ere realign ed n o t b y ch an ce (as in a

22 Xiaoxi 小西, “ F a n y u e d u d e Fenhongse zaoyin” 反閱讀的粉紅色噪音, Tianshi leyuan 天使樂園, 5 S e p . 2007, web, 24 Jan. 2010, < http://angelland.negimaki.com /blog/?p=377>.

197 Dada cut-up or a John Cage acrostic) or by algorithm but very much according to the creative hand of the author. Yet here, eight years after H sia Yü’s previous poetry collection, is a book com posed of m ostly non-literary (and in m any cases, sem i-literate) found internet texts in E n g lish , tran slated in to in ep t C h in ese b y an im p erfect so ftw are tran slato r, an d printed on highly-reIective, highly-transparent celluloid. ⌧e $rst edition sold out quickly, but the response was lukewarm . Another blogger paraphrased Hsia Yü’s gesture, “M y love,

I’ve m ad e m y p o etry co llection tran sp aren t! (A n d w ater-p ro o f, m o istu re-p ro o f, an d in sect- proof, three-in-one)” 親愛的，我把詩集變透明了！（而且防水、防潮、防蟲三效合

一）.23 Transparent, perhaps, but also im possibly opaque; not only w ater-proof, but reader- proof.

On the other hand, though, Pink Noise is a c o n tin u a tio n o f te c h n iq u e s a n d c o n c e rn s th at h ad lo n g ch aracterized H sia Y ü ’s w o rk . N o t o n ly is th is a strik in g b o o k to h o ld an d lo o k at (T aipei’s fam ous Eslite bookstore displayed Pink Noise u n d e r w a te r, in a $sh ta n k 24), as

Hsia Yü’s previous, self-designed collections had also been, but it was also a kind of collage or cut-up, not unlike Friction/Indescribable. E v e n th e c o n c e p t o f a tra n sp a re n t b o o k w h o se te x t collides in three dim ensions had occurred to H sia Yü at the tim e she w as producing

Friction/Indescribable, w h e n sh e c a m e a c ro ss th e E n g lish w o rd “p a lim p se st.” 25 O n a d e e p e r

23 Haiyang 海揚, “Touming de baoli meixue–Xia Yu zuixin shiji Fenhongse zaoyin d u h o u ” 透明的暴力美學 －夏宇最新詩集粉紅色噪音讀後, Xuwu zuochong 虛無作崇, 4 Ja n . 2 0 1 0 , .

24 Ding.

25 See “N im ao fum o” 逆毛撫摸, th e p re fa c e fro m Friction/Indescribable. Iro n ic a lly, sh e m istra n sc rib e s

198 le v e l, Pink Noise’s interrogation of the unbalanced relationship betw een copy and original, here with respect to translation, is absolutely central to Hsia Yü’s poetics quite from the beginning–for although the typographical alignment of the black original and the pink tran slatio n m ig h t lead u s to exp ect th em to co m p lem en t each o th er p erfectly, th ere is far to o much noise, far too little correspondence (or far too much?) between them. So how should we approach the two sides of this book? Is the Chinese half of Pink Noise a n im p e rfe c t c o p y of the English half, a degenerate appendage of the internet itself, that increasingly im p e ria listic re a lm w h o se lin g u a fra n c a was, at the time of Pink Noise’s p u b lic a t io n , unquestionably English? Or is the English half just a bunch of meaningless detritus assem bled for the sake of producing a bizarre and am using collection of C hinese poetry and included only for reference–especially given that most of Hsia Yü’s readers would have better access to the Chinese side anyw ay? How, for that matter, does the English half relate to its ow n originals, the junk m ail and internet forum discussions that served as its sources?

Last, and perhaps most importantly, what does Hsia Yü mean when she says she gave the texts “fo rm ”? W h at u n d erstan d in g o f p o etry is b ein g articu lated th ro u g h th is w o rk , an d w h at is its sta tu s in th e b ra v e n e w w o rld o f d ig ita l m e d ia in w h ic h it p a rtic ip a te s a s a k in d o f o v e r- enthusiastic tourist?

Hsia Yü’s poetry has always thematized mirror-image symmetry, the imperfect reproduction, the iconicity of printed language–all familiar attributes of photographic

“p alim sest” as “p alim sect [sic],” ju st as th e p ro ject of Friction/Indescribable itse lf b e g in s w h e n sh e mistranslates the packaging of a French plumbing supply as “deaf to cold,” confusing so u d e “w e ld ” w ith so u rd e “d e a f.” ⌧is a n e c d o te w ill re c e iv e fu rth e r d isc u ssio n b e lo w .

199 reproductive technologies–and after all, her major at National Taiwan University of Arts was $lm. In Pink Noise, H sia Y ü lite ra lize s a m o d e l o f th e p o e tic p a g e a s a tra n sp a re n t fra m e , a kind of photographic negative or lantern slide–which may be in$nitely projected, reproduced, or reversed, but never without some small imperfection–and she even prints her collection on the sam e material as $lm base, celluloid. “Cutting edge” though her poetry may be continue to be, the Analog Poet Hsia Yü now $nds herself an anachronism in the digital age. W hereas in the time of the historical avant-garde, mechanical reproduction seem ed to ch allen ge fu n d am en tally th e co n cep ts o f au th o rity, o rigin ality, an d au th en ticity

(“au ra”) th at u n d erlay th e p ractice o f artistic creatio n an d recep tio n fo r cen tu ries b efo re, th e la te 2 0 th c e n tu ry h a s se e n th e o n sla u g h t o f fa r m o re p e rfe c t re p ro d u c tiv e te c h n o lo g ie s th a n ever before im agined. In retrospect, the em phasis of reproductive art is no longer the “signal”, but the “noise”–the unwanted, unintended imperfections introduced by the act of copying

–which, in light of completely exact duplicates, seems to recover the qualities art had lost.26

Again and again in Hsia Yü’s work, we see her locating the creative, the original, and the poetic in these failures to transm it accurately, even in Pink Noise, h e r $rst w o rk to e n g a g e actively w ith the digital phenom ena of the late 20 th a n d e a rly 2 1 st c e n tu rie s.

Our model of the frame of $lm helps to explain the kinds of characteristic operations

Hsia Yü performs upon her texts. Unlike a page of a book, the frame of $lm may be turned

26 ⌧e emphasis on noise is similarly found in digital art, which may employ the characteristic forms of noise associated with digital media. Digital noise generally involves misinterpretations–headers treated as data, samples played at the wrong rate or bit depth–“mistranslations” in their own right. Many thanks to com poser D an Iglesia for discussing the technical aspects of digital noise w ith m e.

200 over and view ed from behind, its constituent parts m ay not be excised or rearranged sim ply as w ith m ovable type, and it cannot be reproduced except w ith a degradation in quality. O ur discussion will begin with Hsia Yü’s attraction to reversal and sym m etry, transform ations that sh e o ften asso ciates exp licitly w ith m o tio n p ictu re $lm . F o llo w in g th at, w e w ill d iscu ss tw o strategies th at co n trib u te to th e ico n ic o r grap h ic m o d es o f sign i$catio n in H sia Y ü ’s p o etry, collage and pictograph. ⌧ird, w e w ill address H sia Yü’s approach to reproduction, especially in term s of translation as an inherently im precise reproductive technology. ⌧e $n al part of th e ch ap ter w ill d iscu ss H sia Y ü ’s en co u n ter w ith th e d ig ital th ro u g h Pink Noise.

⌧e term “iconicity” which heads this chapter calls back to Charles Sanders Peirce’s trichotom y, referring to a sign w hose properties them selves allow them to signify. ⌧e original inspiration for approaching poetry in this way cam e from M aghiel van Crevel, who de$nes “iconicity” as the “m echanism s that allow form to contribute directly to content, which generally operate in poetry more than in prose and make form an icon of content rath er th an its m o re o r less arb itrary stylizatio n .” 27 H sia Y ü ’s p o e try p e rp e tu a lly h ig h lig h ts language’s iconicity, through the kinds of operations and m odes of reproduction she applies to h er texts, to th e p o in t th at th e u su al referen ce o f th e lin g u istic sig n s em p lo yed is w illfu lly su p p ressed . O n th e o th er h an d , th e co n stan t ten sio n th at d rives h er w o rk d erives fro m h er refu sal to cro ss fu lly in to co n crete p o etry, w ith its fallacio u s su ggestio n th at lan gu age can sign ify in a w ay th at is o th er th an arb itrary. H sia Y ü ’s p o etry is still m ad e o f lan gu age, b u t h er poem s often sit at the uncom fortable boundary between written text and visual image.

27 Maghiel van Crevel, Chinese Poetry in Times of Mind, Money, and Mayhem (B o sto n : B rill, 2 0 0 8 ): 2 4 0 .

201 Transparency, Symmetry, and “the Opposite Side”

Hsia Yü’s sideline career as a pop lyricist led in 2008 to a collaboration with songw riter Li D uanxian 李端嫻 (a.k .a. V ero n ica L ee) o n a m u sical ad ap tatio n o f m an g a artist Jim i’s 幾米 Turn Left, Turn Right 向左走·向右走 (su b titled in E n g lish A Chance of

Sunshine). H sia Y ü ’s p o p lyrics, w h ich sh e p u b lish es u n d er th e n am es L i G ed i 李格弟, T o n g

Dalong 童大龍, a n d o th e rs, a re o fte n q u irk y if n o t p a rtic u la rly u n c o n v e n tio n a l, a n d generally do not take the risks of the poetry she publishes as H sia Yü.28 O n e o f th e n u m b e rs in Turn Left, Turn Right, h o w e v e r, in te rse c ts su rp risin g ly w ith th e c o n c e rn s o f H sia Y ü ’s poetry. ⌧e song, called “A Reel of Black and W hite Film Suddenly Starts to Play Backw ards”

一捲黑白影片突然開始倒著播放, fe a tu re s a fe m a le p ro ta g o n ist y e a rn in g to g o b a c k in tim e to w h en th e m ale p ro tag o n ist still lo ved h er. ⌧e ch o ru s g o es, “Y o u k n o w I still lo ve you/ Sounds so sim ple/ I know you don’t love m e anym ore/ Sounds so ordinary” 你知道我

還愛你／聽起來是多麼簡單／我知道你已經不愛我／聽起來更平凡.29 ⌧e w ish to g o back in time, how ever ordinary, raises a major them e of Hsia Yü’s poetry through the imagery of the verses: the reversibility of the projected im age. ⌧e scenes described in the song are

28 ⌧is is not to say there is not an interesting argument to make comparing her two bodies of work, published under di9erent pen nam es though they are. Her 2010 collections ✏is Zebra a n d ✏at Zebra b o th m a k e u se of the sam e kinds of avant-garde book design as her poetry collections to anthologize H sia Yü’s pop lyrical output.

29 Audio and lyrics of the song are visible on Youtube: Wei Ruxuan 魏如萱 (p erf.), “Yijuan heibai yingpian turan kaishi daozhe bofang–Jimi yinyueju Xiang zuo zou xiang you zou” 一捲黑白影片突然開始倒著播 放-幾米音樂劇《向左走向右走》, YouTube, 6 M ay 2013, web, 24 June 2013.

202 stan d ard can d id ates fro m th e sto ck fo o tage b in fo r b ack w ard s m o tio n : a sh attered b o ttle reco n stitu tes itself, a ro se retu rn s to th e b u d an d gro w s b ack w ard in to th e seed , rain falls u p .

⌧e song closes with an explicit statement of its nostalgia for lost potential: “We go back to innum erable beginnings, those young, restless m ornings” 我們回到無數個開始，那些個

年輕激烈的早上.

Ju d g in g fro m h er w o rk s, th e $lm m ed iu m h o ld s m u ch fascin atio n fo r H sia Y ü , an d sh e asso ciates it co n sisten tly w ith tem p o ral o r sp atial reversib ility: a reel o f $lm m ay b e played forward or backw ard, right-side-up or upside-dow n, correctly oriented or reversed righ t-to -left. If “A R eel o f B lack an d W h ite F ilm Su d d en ly Starts to P lay B ack w ard s” unam biguously prefers going backw ards over going forwards, Hsia Yü’s poetry more often presents the two halves of a mirror-image as an undecidable enigm a. One of the poem cycles th at ap p ears in Ventriloquy, “ S e c re t C o n v e rsa tio n s w ith th e A n im a ls” 與動物密談, c o n ta in s a poem describing a perfectly sym m etrical m ovie theater:

Secret Conversation with the Anim als III

regard in g th e reverse sid e. in a large theater capable of holding several hundred m illion people many Iights of stairs lead to the unknowable dark rows seats go in every d irectio n o n e after an o th er ab o ve th e stairs every seat holds som eone watching a movie a giant screen hangs in the center of the theater the $lm being projected is c a lle d “ ⌧e State of ⌧in gs” the other side of the screen also has countless stairs countless seats countless people sitting just like this side all w atching the sam e m ovie reversed

與動物密談（三）

203 關於反面。 一座可以容納數億人的大劇院裡 階梯成幾何級數往不可知的黑暗排列 階梯上一個女一個橫生的座位每個位子 都坐滿了看電影的人一面巨大的布幕 懸掛在劇場中央放映的片名 叫做「事物的狀態」布幕的另一面 也如同這一面有著無以計數的階梯 無以計數的座位無以計數的人坐著 在看同一部反面的電影30

⌧e four poems in “Secret Conversations with the Animals” comprise a very loosely connected sequence, uni$ed m ore by the repetition of certain w ords and phrases and a matter-of-fact tone of description than by subject matter, form, or the speaking subject, who drops in and out at will. ⌧e introductory phrase “regarding”, which introduces the topic here, contributes to the large-scale structure of the poem as it appears several other times in the sequence: “regarding G reece” 關於希臘, “re g a rd in g th e th e rm o m e te r” 關於溫度計, a n d

“regard in g disloyalty” 關於不忠. ⌧e sc e n e th a t “re g a rd s” th e “re v e rse” (fa n m ia n 反面,

“o p p o site side”) h ere is th at of an en o rm o u s, perfectly sym m etrical m ovie th eater h o ldin g millions or billions of viewers, half of whom see the movie normally on one side of the screen , an d h alf o f w h o m see its m irro r im age o n th e o th er sid e o f th e screen . ⌧e th eater is large enough, the subject of the $lm (“ ⌧e State of ⌧ings”) generic enough, that the theater could easily function as a $gure for the w hole w orld. ⌧e question that rem ains is the sam e one that has long plagued view ers of reIections: given that the sides are identical but opposite, which side to prefer? W hich is the recto, th e ‘rig h t’ sid e (zhengm ian 正面), an d which is the verso, th e o p p o site , th e re v e rsa l (fa n m ia n )? W h ich h alf o f th e p o p u latio n sees th e

30 Xia Yu shiji: Fuyushu 夏宇詩集：腹語術, 2 nd e d ., (T a ip e i: X ia n d a i sh i, 2 0 0 7 ): 1 7 .

204 correct (cor-rect) State of ⌧ings, and w hich half sees things ass-backw ards?

In Zhou Mengdie’s Poetry of Consciousness (W ie sb a d e n : H a rra sso w itz, 2 0 0 6 ), L lo y d

Haft argues that symmetrical, palindromic forms create a certain undecidability, a leveling of hierarchies: as in the story alluded to by Taiwanese poet Zhou M engdie’s 周夢蝶 pen nam e, does Zhuangzi dream he is a butterIy, or does the butterIy dream it is Zhuangzi? ⌧e sam e principle certainly applies in Hsia Yü’s case. Consider the poem “Allegory” 寓言, a lso fro m

Ventriloquy:

on his birthday he discovered an un$nished allegory stuck at the end of the third paragraph but it w as already clear th is w as an in accurate allegory in the second paragraph he discovered he didn’t know w hat to do this em barrassin g allegory lin gered every day within three feet of his head he pulled down the brim of his hat popped his collar and crossed the street through the rain everybody sensed it nobody else knew what to do either 42 years old

th e n ig h t b efo re th ey lifted th e n ew sp ap er b an h e tried o u t in h is p o em s so m e p o litically sen sitive w o rd s really? really? fro m n o w o n w e can freely and w ithout restraint use the w ord ‘t e a p o t’?

at the m ovie theater exit tw o m en w ho had slept w ith th e sam e p ro stitu te in d i9eren t ro o m s held onto their girls and exchanged a deep glance

生日那一天發現一則還沒完成的 寓言停留在第二段的末尾但早已肯定 是一則不準確的寓言在 第二段就發現了不知如何是好

如此一則尷尬的寓言每天徘徊在 頭頂三尺之內他把帽沿拉低衣領 豎起冒雨過街眾人察覺了眾人 亦不知如何是好 42 歲

205 報禁解除的前夕在詩裡試探著 敏感的字眼真的嗎真的嗎從此我們將 可以肆無忌憚地使用「茶壺」 這個字眼了嗎

電影散場的出口 兩個曾在不同房間 嫖過同一個妓女的男子各自 挽著他們的女人交換了 深沉的一瞥31

⌧ere several cases of self-reference within this poem, where the poem seems to be describing itself: “the second paragraph,” w here the “he” of the poem , him self a poet, “discovered he didn’t know what to do,” is in this poem the place where the poet $nds himself stym ied by th e p o ssib ility o f u sin g “p o litically sen sitive w o rd s”; “th e en d o f th e th ird p arag rap h ,” said to be the location of the poet’s “inaccurate” allegory, here describes a scene otherwise unrelated to th e $rst tw o verse paragraphs w hich could very w ell be allegorical. ⌧e tran slatio n

“allego ry” is on ly on e p o ssib le ren d erin g of th e C h in ese w o rd yu yan 寓言, w h ic h c a n m e a n

“p arab le” (as in langzi huitou de yuyan 浪子回頭的寓言 “the parable of the prodigal son”) or “fable” (as in Yisuo yuyan 伊索寓言 Aesop’s Fables). L iterally, yu 寓 means to dwell or live in tem porarily, and by extension, to im ply or suggest, in the sense that one speaks of one thing tem porarily in order to im ply another. In the context of the T aiw anese new spaper ban

(baojin 報禁) m en tio n ed in th e p o em ,32 w e p re su m e th a t th e p o e t m u st u se a lle g o ric a l language to discuss topics too sensitive to treat directly–though of course Hsia Yü does not reveal w h at th at su b ject m igh t b e, ch o o sin g as th e “sen sitive” w o rd th e p o et lo o k s fo rw ard to

31 Xia Yu shiji: Fuyushu 1 0 .

32 Restrictions on the publication of newspapers imposed by the Nationalist government were in e9ect in Taiwan from 1951 until January 1st, 1 9 8 8 .

206 using nothing more signi$cant than “teapot.” Exam ining the supposed allegory, we can guess why the poet “didn’t know what to do”: we see two couples leaving a movie theater in perfect sym m etry, each m an eyein g th e o th er as h e h o ld s o n to h is o w n girlfrien d . H o w ever it is n o t ju st w h a t tra n sp ire s a t th is sc e n e th a t c re a te s th e m irro r im a g e , b u t w h a t h a s h a p p e n e d previously; the two men each “slept with / the sam e prostitute in di9erent room s,” which is apparently the reason for the “deep glance” that now serves as the axis of sym m etry. Each man jealously guards his own girlfriend while regarding the other man with suspicion, but both are guilty of the sam e in$delity. W hich man, if either, betrayed the other? W hich has any right to be suspicious? Is this undecidability the reason the allegory is “incorrect” and

“em b arrassin g”? O n ce again , th e m irro r-im age situ ation is asso ciated fo r H sia Yü w ith $lm , in this case only the m ovie theater setting, w hich provides another axis of sym m etry betw een th e tw o co u p les: th ey h ave b o th ju st $nished w atching the sam e m ovie. W e m ight w onder if the m ovie they saw w as called “⌧e S tate o f ⌧in gs,” an d if they perhaps sat on opposite sides of the theater.

⌧e consideration of the opposite point of view, the view which sees everything backw ards, $gures on an interpersonal level as well. In Hsia Yü’s poignant “D ancing Aw ay fro m Y o u ” 背著你跳舞, a p o e m a d d re sse d b y a h e a rt-b ro k e n fe m a le sp e a k e r to h e r fo rm e r lover, the speaker’s action s, erratic though they are, are con sisten tly orien ted aw ay from the addressee.33 ⌧e C h in e se p h ra se beizhe ni 背著你, w h ic h I h a v e tra n sla te d in th e title a s

33 Xia Yu shiji: Fuyushu 6 0 .

207 “aw ay fro m yo u ,” literally m ean s, “w ith m y b ack tu rn ed to yo u ,” or “facin g aw ay fro m yo u .”

In all th e actio n o f th e p o em , th e sp eak er k eep s h er b ack $rm ly in th e d irectio n o f h er ex, th e

“you” in th e poem . Sh e w alks on an islan d , looks at han ging vines, feels gu ilty, pu ts on a copper ring, goes into exile, w anders, cries, laughs out of turn, etc., alw ays “aw ay from you,” beizhe ni. ⌧e p o e m h e lp s u s to u n d e rsta n d th e in te rp e rso n a l im p lic a tio n s o f th e re v e rse : th e sid e w e sh o w w h en w e w an t to say w e d o n ’t care b u t really d o , th e e9o rt to ign o re th e o n e th in g w e are $xated o n , th e retu rn o f th e rep ressed , th e sig n th at b etray s th e o p p o site o f w h at it is m e a n t to sig n ify. Y e t w h e n H sia Y ü re c y c le s th e p o e m in Friction/Indescribable, a lo n g with some other fragments that will be familiar to us here, she carries the act of negation to an absurd extrem e.

Absolutely Won’t Lead to Any Misunderstandings

the afternoon you turned aw ay from the ocean and cam e to see m e you turned aw ay from m e turning aw ay from you regard in g th e reverse sid e a reverse m ovie turned aw ay from it you turned aw ay from you tu rn in g aw ay fro m m e turning aw ay from your reverse side

絕不引致任何嫌隙

你背著海來看我的下午 我背著你 背著我 關於反面 一部反面的電影 背著它 你背著你 背著我 背著你的那些反面34

34 Moca/wuyimingzhuang 摩擦·無以名狀 (T aib ei: T an gsh an , 1 9 9 5 ): n .p .

208 ⌧e two $gures in the poem turn away from each other, from other things, even from them selves. W e picture tw o people, turning in circles, discovering that “aw ay” is never “aw ay” enough. W e turn and look the other w ay, only to $nd that w hat w e have been avoiding is already avoiding us. It is clearly no coincidence that the phrases “regarding the reverse side” and “a reverse m ovie” from “Secret Talk w ith the A nim als III” $nd their w ay into the poem , as both poem s deal w ith the politics of inversion, of negation. Yet w here the e9ect of the main source text, “Dancing Away from You,” is a kind of pathos induced by the compulsive rep etitio n o f th e act o f avo id an ce, “A b so lu tely W o n ’t L ead to A n y M isu n d erstan d in gs” tak es th e p ath etic an d rep eats it, en larg es it, u n til it reach es ab su rd ity. If tu rn in g o n e’s b ack to so m eo n e b etrays em o tio n al in vestm en t even as it p erfo rm s in d i9eren ce, th e act o f assem b lin g a passage like “you turned aw ay from you / turning aw ay from m e / turning aw ay from your reverse sid e” creates iro n ic in d i9eren ce o u t o f sin cere em o tio n . Is th e title, “A b so lu tely W o n ’t

Lead to Any Misunderstandings” 絕不引致任何嫌隙, sim ila rly iro n ic ? O r d o e s it re fe r to the unam biguous “no” of the indiscrim inate negation?

209 Figure 1. “ W a lk in g fro m 1 to 2 ” 由 1走向 2.

So far the exam ples we have considered treat sym m etry them atically, without attem pting to represent it form ally. W hen H sia Yü takes her interest in reversal to the form al le v e l in “ W a lk in g fro m 1 to 2 ” 由 1走向 2 in Friction/Indescribable (se e $g u re 1 ), sh e d o e s not simply create a palindrom ic poem , but makes use of inversions to underm ine our very practice of reading. ⌧e poem appears in a roughly hexagonal shape, the line lengths increasing by tw o characters every line until line four, the poem ’s m idpoint, and then decreasing by two characters every line until the seventh and $nal line. Hsia Yü arranges the poem so as to be bilaterally sym m etrical: not only are lines on either side of the fourth line equal in length, each line has an equal num ber of syllables above or below a line passing horizontally through the center of the poem (the text in Friction/Indescribable ru n s vertically). Yet the sense of sym m etry goes even one dim ension further: every word in the

210 poem is a two-syllable com pound whose syllables are reversed. ⌧us, instead of qingxie 傾斜

“to slan t,” th e p o em u ses xieqing 斜傾, w h ic h is n o t a n e x istin g c o m p o u n d w o rd in

Chinese. ⌧is trick renders the poem untranslatable, if not quite totally unreadable; the e9ect is n o t d issim ila r to w ritin g “p o u n d c o m ” in ste a d o f “c o m p o u n d ” o r “v e rse re” in ste a d o f

“reverse.” ⌧e major problem this technique presents is what direction to read–either we read in a co n ven tio n al d irectio n (to p to b o tto m , righ t to left) an d reverse each w o rd as w e read it, o r w e m u st read in a to tally u n co n ven tio n al d irectio n (b o tto m to to p , righ t to left) so th at th e w o rd s m ak e sen se as w ritten . B u t if w e are g o in g to read in a d irectio n o th er th an the usual one anyway, how can we rule out a third choice–bottom to top, left to right– which also gives us legible words? Or top to bottom, left to right, which produces non-words ju st a s o u r c o n v e n tio n a l d ire c tio n o f re a d in g w o u ld ? H e re w e $n d th e e x a c t d ile m m a presented by the mirror image in “Secret Talk with the Animals,” but reIected along two axes instead of just one; by leaving the direction of the text undecidable, H sia Yü has truly w ritten a tw o-dim ensional poem , w here line breaks serve to produce lateral contiguity instead of merely standing for signposts along unidimensional, unidirectional stream of text. Deciding how to translate the poem is an interesting question, because how ever we do it, we must determ ine to read the words one way or another, a decision which is deferred by the Chinese original. As a tentative solution, I suggest the follow ing: translating the m irror im age of the poem (read from bottom to top), and then Iipping the entire translation left-to-right.

211 Figure 2. “ W a lk in g fro m 1 to 2 ,” p ro v isio n a l tra n sla tio n .

⌧e reason the direction matters, the reason we are unwilling simply to declare the poem bidirectional, is that trends appear in the poem along the various axes. Line four seem s to be the crux: w e have tw o pairs of opposites, n am ely “rise” an d “fall” an d “gather” an d

“sq u an d er.” B u t are w e fallin g after risin g to o h igh ? O r pick in g ou rselves up after a fall? A re we squandering what we carefully gathered? Or painstakingly recouping what we foolishly threw aw ay? M oving to line $ve, d o es th e rip /b reak o ccu r after tig h ten in g to o far, o r after descending too far? By leaving one dimension of the reader’s traversal of the poem uncertain,

Hsia Yü has created a legitimately two-dimensional poem, a poem whose symmetrical printed shape is not only iconic, as in concrete poetry, but structurally signi$cant to the meaning of the words and the poem as a whole. What Hsia Yü manages to do in “Walking from 1 to 2” is take the tw o-dim ensional undecidability that she developed in “Secret T alk with the Animals III” and “Allegory” and apply it to the very practice of reading. Hsia Yü’s textu al p ractice, in its m o re revo lu tio n ary m o m en ts, to u ch es o n w h at L eo n R o u d iez calls

“p aragram m atics”: “an y read in g strategy th at ch allen ges th e n o rm ative referen tial gram m ar of

212 a text by form ing ‘netw orks of signi$cation not accessible through conventional reading habits’ is paragram m atic,” cites Craig Dw orkin.35 W e w ill se e m o re e x a m p le s o f H sia Y ü ’s avoidance of sim plistically iconic visual elem ents later on.

Collage

⌧e collage technique of Friction/Indescribable h a s p re c e d e n t in th e C h in e se c u ltu ra l trad itio n , as w ell as in th e trad itio n o f th e h isto rical avan t-g ard e. In lig h t o f th e C h in ese trad itio n , H sia Y ü h alf-jo k in g ly co m p ares h er p ro ject to th e allu sive literary p ractices o f

Chinese literati in her postface to the 2008 edition of Ventriloquy, sa y in g , “ Y o u c o u ld sa y every w ord [in Friction/Indescribable] h as its so u rce,” 36 w h ic h is h o w th e Q in g d y n a sty ci-poet

Wang Pengyun 王鵬運 praises the ci 詞 of W u W enying 吳文英, th e sh i 詩 of Du Fu 杜甫, and the wen 文 of H an Yu 韓愈. N e e d le ss to sa y, a llu sio n in th e w o rk s o f th e se a u th o rs serves very d i9eren t p u rp o ses fro m H sia Y ü ’s so lip sistic self-referen ce, b u t it alw ays b ears rep eatin g th at p o stm o d ern in tertextu al p ractices are n o t en tirely n ew p h en o m en a.37 P e rh a p s th e b etter co m p ariso n is w ith L i H e 李賀 (7 9 0 -8 1 6 ), th e g reatly eccen tric an d ill-fated p o et of the Tang who is reported to have ridden around on a donkey scribbling couplets on scraps of paper which he would assem ble into com plete poem s only later.38 ⌧e n a g a in , sin c e L i 35 Craig Dworkin, Reading the Illegible (E v a n sto n , Ill.: N o rth w e ste rn U n iv e rsity P re ss, 2 0 0 3 ): 1 2 ; se e a lso Ju lia Kristeva, Revolution in Poetic Language (N e w Y o rk : C o lu m b ia U n iv e rsity P re ss, 1 9 8 4 ): 2 5 6 .

36 Xia Yu shiji: Fuyushu, 3 rd e d . (T a ip e i: X ia Y u c h u b a n , 2 0 0 8 ) 1 2 3 .

37 One could even say, with a wink, that China “has had that for ages” 古已有之.

38 Li Shangyin 李商隱, “ L i C h a n g ji zh u a n ” 李長詰小傳, Li Shangyin quanji (S h a n g h a i: S h a n g h a i g u ji

213 He’s couplets had no original context in advance of their eventual assembly, perhaps they resem b le m o saic tiles m o re th an co llage fragm en ts. O th er p reced en ts exist in th e visu al arts:

Robert Harrist relates that Yan Cheng (I. mid-sixteenth century) collected a funeral epitaph written by Zhu Yunming (1461-1527) on a hanging scroll; he was uncomfortable displaying it due to its subject m atter, but he appreciated the calligraphy, so he cut it up and rem ounted it a s a sm a ll a lb u m .39 L ik e H sia Y ü , Y a n C h e n g c u t u p h is o rig in a l to c h a n g e its fo rm , m a k e it sm aller, b ro ad ly sp eak in g to ch an ge th e m an n er o r co n text in w h ich it w as co n su m ed . B u t th e m o re im p o rtan t sim ilarity lies d eep er. H arrist p o in ts to th e ten d en cy to sep arate visu al form from sem antic content in C hinese calligraphy appreciation: “⌧e d en ig ratio n o f meaning is a cornerstone of early calligraphy criticism and theory.”40 ⌧o u g h th e a n e c d o te about Yan C heng illustrates the di6culty of such a split, H sia Yü’s cutting and pasting assert th e sam e p referen ce fo r visu al fo rm o ver sem an tic co n ten t attrib u ted to trad itio n al calligraphy criticism . ⌧e constant tendency in H sia Yü’s poetry is tow ards the visual icon: graphically signi$cant and untranscribable, the logo, the pictogram . H er m ost severe maneuver in this direction is “Séance III” from Ventriloquy, a p o e m c o m p o se d a s a c o lla g e o f printed Chinese characters (see $gure).41 A g a in w e c a n re tu rn , fo r c o m p a riso n , to th e

chubanshe, 1999): 209-10.

39 See Robert E. H arrist, “Book from the Sky a t P rin c e to n : R e Ie c tio n s o n S c a le , S e n se , a n d S o u n d ,” Persistence/Transformation: Text as Image in the Art of Xu Bing (Princeton: P.Y. and Kinm ay W. Tang Center for E ast A sian A rt, 2006): 34.

40 Ib id . 3 3 .

41 Examination of the characters involved has led me to conclude that the source for the cut-up is the table of contents of Ventriloquy itse lf.

214 Dadaists, speci$cally their sound poetry (such as Ball’s “Gadji beri bimba” or Schwitters’s

Ursonate), th o u g h H sia Y ü ’s m ed iu m o f ch o ice is m u ch m o re u su ally th e visu al rath er th an th e so n ic.

Figure 3. “ S é a n c e III,” fro m Ventriloquy.

Hsia Yü’s original characters are notable for following, more or less, the graphical syn tax o f th e C h in ese ch aracter: th e p ieces o f th e ch aracters are legitim ate (sin ce th ey are dissected from legitimate Chinese characters), they are mostly arranged in ways that are th eo retically p o ssib le, an d fo r th e m o st p art th ey $t th e sam e rectan g u lar fo rm at th at all printed characters must $t. “Séance III” begs for com parison to Heavenly Writing 天書

(1 9 8 8 ),42 th e h ig h ly c o n tro v e rsia l w o rk b y H sia Y ü ’s fa r m o re fa m o u s, fa r m o re n o to rio u s

42 ⌧e work’s title is more commonly translated Book from the Sky, a re n d e rin g th a t c o m p le te ly o v e rlo o k s th e com m on usage of tia n sh u to m e a n w ritin g (n o t n e c e ssa rily a b o o k ) so lo fty a s to b e u n in te llig ib le b y re g u la r fo lk s.

215 mainland contemporary Xu Bing 徐冰 (1 9 5 5 -). F o r Heavenly Writing, X u in v e n te d m a n y thousands of original, m eaningless C hinese characters, carved them into printing blocks, and proceeded to create a multivolum e set of meaningless books. Xu’s work touched an extrem ely sen sitive n erve in C h in a, w h ere th e w ritten ch aracter is itself an ico n fo r C h in ese cu ltu ral uniqueness.43 X u B in g ’s c h a ra c te rs w e re in v e n te d b y th e a rtist to h a v e n o m e a n in g , b u t th e y all cou ld h a v e b e e n re a l c h a ra c te rs (so m e o f th e m , in fa c t, tu rn e d o u t to b e ra re o r v a ria n t form s attested in odd corn ers of the textual record), w hereas, in a m ove that sets her quite apart from X u Bing, H sia Yü m akes no attem pt to pass her characters o9 as genuine. Portions are o9-kilter (seventh row from the right, $rst character from the top) or out of proportion

(eleven th ro w , fo u rth ch aracter; eig h th ro w , th ird ch aracter); in creatin g th e co llag e, sh e ro tates certain fragm en ts so th at co m p o n en t lin es’ th ick er an d th in n er sectio n s are in th e wrong places, suggesting that the lines were written or inscribed in the wrong direction

(fourth row , third character; sixth row , secon d character). W hereas X u B in g’s Heavenly

Writing a d h e re s c o m p le te ly to th e p ro p e r te c h n iq u e o f C h in e se c a llig ra p h y a n d th e woodblock printmaking style derived from it, Hsia Yü cuts her characters o9 from their handw ritten forebears. ⌧e e9ect is similar to that of Roy Lichtenstein’s Brushstroke se rie s, which parodies the hyper-individualistic painterly gestures of the abstract expressionists by rep ro d u cin g ab stract b ru sh stro k es in B en -D ay d o ts, th e p rin tin g tech n iq u e em p lo yed fo r newspaper cartoons. ⌧e calligraphy behind Xu Bing’s Heavenly Writing m a y b e in te n d e d fo r

43 See Perry Link, “W hose Assumptions Does Xu Bing Upset, and Why?”, Persistence/Tranformation: Text as Im age in th e A rt of X u B in g 4 7 -5 7 .

216 rep ro d u ctio n , b u t it is still p ro d u ced b y th e h an d o f th e au th o r an d b ears h is p erso n al, absolutely individual m ark. W here the characters of Heavenly Writing were originally written, then carved onto blocks and printed, “Séance III” is cut and pasted from industrially printed characters w hose ultim ate origin in hand-w ritten language is foggy at best. W hile X u Bing has built his original characters from the most individual building blocks, his ow n brush stro k es, H sia Y ü assem b les h ers h ap h azard ly fro m th e read ym ad e, th e an o n ym o u s.

The Missing Pictograph

As we have seen in poems such as “Séance III” and “Walking from 1 to 2,” Hsia Yü is in te re ste d in th e g ra p h ic p o te n tia l o f th e w ritte n w o rd . A lth o u g h in th is re g a rd sh e is n o doubt inIuenced by her Francophilia–one of Guillaume Apollinaire’s most famous calligram s is “Il pleut” (“It R ains”), or translated into C hinese, Hsia Yü 下雨, h o m o p h o n ic with Hsia Yü’s pen name–the indigenous Taiwanese tradition of concrete poetry includes works by notable poets such as Lin Hengtai 林亨泰, B a i Q iu 白萩, Z h a n B in g 詹冰, a n d others. W here H sia Yü’s visual practices diverge from this group’s, indeed from those of m any concrete poets, is in her resistance to w hat U m berto Eco has called the “iconic fallacy,” de$ned by Caroline Bayard as the fallacy that “a sign has the sam e properties as its object and is simultaneously similar to, analogous to, and motivated by its object”–essentially a

Cratylic view of language.44 A lth o u g h H sia Y ü h a s c o m p o se d stra ig h tfo rw a rd ly c o n c re te

44 ✏e New Poetics in Canada and Quebec: From Concretism to Post-Modernism (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1989), 24, qtd. in Perloff, “Writing as Re-Writing.”

217 poem s (part one of “Record of an InIatable M ovie ⌧eater” 記一座充氣電影院 grow s gradually longer line by line, receding slightly with each new stanza, ideographically su ggestin g in Iatio n in th ree “p u9 s”45), she elsew here adopts a m ore sophisticated stan ce to th e relatio n sh ip b etw een im ag e an d text.

Figure 4. “ ⌧e M issin g Im a g e ,” fro m Ventriloquy

“⌧e M issing Im age” 失蹤的象 fro m Ventriloquy in te rro g a te s th e v e ry sig n ify in g potential of images, by interpolating images into a text that is itself a reIection on the relatio n sh ip b etw een im age an d text in p ro d u cin g m ean in g. H sia Y ü b egin s w ith excerp ts

45 “Ji yizuo chongqi dianyingyuan” 記一座充氣電影院, Xianzai shi 03 現在詩 03 (2005).

218 fro m a p assag e fro m W an g B i’s 王弼 (2 2 6 -2 4 9 ) co m m en tary to th e Yijing c a lle d “ E x p la in in g th e Im ag es” 明象. ⌧e b a sic te x t, w ith th e w o rd “ im a g e” p re se rv e d , re a d s a s fo llo w s:

Since the words are the m eans to explain the im ages, once one gets the im ages, he forgets the words, and, since the images are the means to allow us to concentrate on the ideas, once one gets the ideas, he forgets the im ages. . . . ⌧erefore som eone who stays $xed on the words will not be one to get the images, and som eone who stays $xed on the images will not be one to get the ideas. ⌧e im ages are generated by the ideas, but if one stays $xed on the im ages th em selves, th en w h at h e stays $xed o n w ill n o t b e im a ges a s w e m e a n th e m h e re . ⌧e w o rd s are generated by the im ages, but if one stays $xed on the w ords them selves, then w hat he stays $xed o n w ill n o t b e words a s w e m e a n th e m h e re . If th is is so , th e n so m e o n e w h o fo rg e ts th e im ag es w ill b e o n e to g et th e id eas, an d so m eo n e w h o fo rg ets th e w o rd s w ill b e o n e to g et th e im ag es. G ettin g th e id eas is in fact a m atter o f fo rg ettin g th e im ag es, an d g ettin g th e im ages is in fact a m atter of forgetting the w ords. ⌧us, although the im ages w ere established in order to yield up ideas com pletely, as im ages they m ay be forgotten.46

⌧e hierarchy suggested by Wang Bi is that words are an aid to understanding images, and im ages are an aid to understanding concepts; neither has any value in itself. H sia Yü alters the text b y su b stitu tin g a sm all im ag e, alig n ed w ith th e text, every tim e W an g B i u ses th e w o rd

“im age.” By replacing som e of the w ords in W ang Bi’s com m entary w ith im ages, H sia Yü su ggests a w ay to test h is h yp o th esis: d o w e u n d erstan d b etter w h en th e w o rd ‘im age’ is rep laced w ith an actu al im age, w h ich is su p p o sed ly clo ser to th e m ean in g th at w e h o p e to understand? Hsia Yü imm ediately faces a problem : what would an image of “image” look like? A bstract categories cannot be represented pictographically except through m etonym y, through speci$c m em b ers o f th e categ o ry ; rath er th an rep resen t th e categ o ry “im ag es,” H sia

Yü can only give us individual images. Hsia Yü further confuses the matter by choosing as im ages, as representatives of the category “im ages,” im ages that are clearly m eant to denote

46 Richard John Lynn, trans., ✏e Classic of Changes: A New Translation of the I Ching as Interpreted by Wang Bi (N ew Y o rk : C o lu m b ia U n iversity P ress, 1 9 9 4 ): 3 1 -3 2 .

219 so m eth in g else–they are all simpli$ed and idealized pictograms designed to be easily tran slatab le in to o n e w o rd . ⌧u s w e see cat, tu rtle, sn ak e, d in o sau r, allig ato r, crab , p en g u in , whale, chick, ladybug, Iower, pineapple, bench, purse, triangle (the musical instrument), and kettle. ⌧e pictogram s continue spilling along the edge of the page after the poem has ended:

Iowerpot, piano, matchbox, ladder. Finally, at the left-hand edge of the margin, Hsia Yü includes an im age quite unlike the others, a sketch of A ldo R ossi’s ‘L a C upola’ co9e e m a k e r stan d in g n ext to th e F lo ren ce C ath ed ral w h o se d o m e is evo k ed b y R o ssi’s d esign . A p art fro m th e sk etch o f L a C u p o la, th e im ag es are all o f a p iece; in th eir fam iliarity an d reco g n izab ility th ey resem b le th e k in d s o f p u b lic in fo rm atio n sy m b o ls p u t in to u se in airp o rts, p ark s, an d other public locations where sim ple ideas m ust be com m unicated quickly and e9ectively to sp eak ers o f vario u s lan gu ages. ⌧u s H sia Y ü h as u p p ed th e an te even fu rth er: p erh ap s im ages cannot depict abstract categories unam biguously, but they can com m unicate certain kinds of inform ation even to people of di9erent linguistic backgrounds. D oes “⌧e M issin g Im a g e” th erefo re p ro m ise a retu rn to th e tim e b efo re th e T o w er o f B ab el?

⌧e utopian vision of communication in images that Hsia Yü $nds in Wang Bi and then takes to her ow n absurd extrem es quickly begins to unravel, starting $rst fro m th e title.

⌧e character I have been translating as ‘image,’ xiang 象, h a s a se c o n d m e a n in g , ‘e le p h a n t,’ which would turn the title of the poem into “⌧e Missing Elephant.” Hsia Yü elsewhere expresses her am azem ent at sim ilarly strange instances of polysem y, for exam ple the English word ‘fudge’: “how can it how can it it’s not only / soft candy it’s also nonsense also a stamp

220 also it can dodge?” (“Séance II”). N ot only that, the character is even a pictograph for

‘elephant,’ one of the very sm all proportion of C hinese characters that do indeed have their origins in pictographs, and in a strange sense it is thus not at all out of place am ong the tu rtles an d cats in th e p o em . In th is case, w e realize th at, alth o u g h o u r text in clu d es a tu rtle, a snake, a dinosaur, a cat, etc., there is no elephant to be found. Just as w hen w e read looking for the w ord ‘im age’ and found only im ages, w e read looking for an elephant and $n d o n ly other things. ⌧e wordplay involved, m oreover, can only m ake sense in Chinese characters, in language; no translation of the poem could have both an im age and a n e le p h a n t th a t a re missing. ⌧e cultural speci$city of linguistic signs, at last, is shown to apply just as much to im ages in the sketch of R ossi’s co9ee m aker, w hich in its Italian con text recalls the cupola of a cathedral. If w e don’t know w hat ‘cupola’ m eans, if w e haven’t seen an Italian G othic cathedral, the allusion is lost. In the end, the failure of “⌧e M issing Im age/E lephant” to com m unicate its m eaning clearly is H sia Yü’s refusal to put any m ore faith in the signifying potential of images than she does in words. Hsia Yü’s poetry may exploit the iconicity of the written word, but it is not pictographic.

Translation as Reproduction

Now we may return to the issue that began our discussion, reproduction, and in particular a kind of reproduction that is almost guaranteed to be imperfect: translation. Hsia

Yü’s interest in translation long predates Pink Noise. Friction/Indescribable, th e p re d e c e sso r

221 work to which we have already returned again and again for the conceptual seeds elaborated in Pink Noise, a p p e a rs to h a v e b e g u n w ith a n a c t o f m istra n sla tio n . H sia Y ü re c o u n ts $n d in g a discarded package of som ething like plum ber’s putty w hile living in France. R eading the instructions on the package, she confuses so u d e a n d so u rd a n d m isre a d s “w e ld [so u d e] w h en cold” as “deaf [so u rd ] to cold ,” a p h rase w h ich excites h er for th ree h ou rs before sh e realizes her mistake. Her disappointment that som ething cannot be “deaf to cold” after all blends into her sadness at the passing of the Provençal sum m er and the advent of autum n, w hich in tu rn in sp ires th e existen tial exam in atio n th at lead s h er to w o n d er w h y th e p o em s sh e h ad written in her life were th ose p o e m s a n d n o t other p o e m s. ⌧is a c t o f se lf-re Ie c tio n , in tu rn , is what inspires her to cut her previous collection, Ventriloquy, in to p ie c e s a n d a sse m b le it anew .47 F o r H sia Y ü , th e m istra n sla tio n is in $n ite ly m o re in te re stin g , p o e tic , in sp irin g th a n th e co rrect tran slatio n ; th e lo ss o f accu racy is, it tu rn s o u t, a g ain .

Hsia Yü’s explanation of Friction/Indescribable a n d its o rig in s a re c o n siste n t w ith a view of life and personality as contingent, transient. H er e9ort to edit her poetry collection retro sp ectively (so m eth in g sh e d o es regu larly w h en n ew ed itio n s co m e o u t, th o u gh n ever as rad ically as in th is case) is a w ay to exp lo re th e p o ten tial altern ative realities th at co u ld h ave com e to pass, if only one or tw o sm all details had been di9erent. She describes her thought process in ram bling prose:

Because it was autum n I discovered that my discom fort towards pretty much all of the poems I h ad w ritten w as b ecau se I w asn’t ab le to w rite th em an y oth er w ay. I th o u gh t I to o m ayb e wan’t the person writing these words it’s just the envelopes of the letters got switched so you

47 “N im ao fum o,” Friction/Indescribable n .p .

222 miss all those chance encounters just barely and you would never know whose reincarnation you were.

因為是秋天我發現對我寫過的詩我差不多都是不安的因為我沒能把它們寫成 另一種樣子。想想我原也可能不是我現在這樣寫著字的這個人只要同時寄出 的兩封信 裝錯了信封一切因緣際會稍稍錯失你就再也不知道你是誰的輪回 轉世.48

Her solution is to dissect a copy she has handy of Ventriloquy (w h o se la rg e p rin tin g fo rm a t, sh e felt, “to o k u p to o m u ch sp ace” 49) into w ords and phrases and then reassem ble them into new poem s. Friction/Indescribable ta k e s th e fa ilu re to re p ro d u c e a c c u ra te ly a s its b e g in n in g and end: it is a “re-w rite” of Ventriloquy th a t p re se rv e s n o th in g su b sta n tia l o f th e o rig in a l, a n d one whose ultim ate form is a two-dim ensional photocopy of the three-dim ensional collage which replicates its uneven arrangement and the bleeding of text from the reverse side of the cut-up, w hile failing to reproduce the subtle gradations of light and shadow of the textured, three-dim ensional page (introducing m ore contrast: a hallm ark of the photocopy). In other words, the text of Friction/Indescribable is n o t o n ly a n im p e rfe c t c o p y o f Ventriloquy, th e physical book itself is an imperfect copy of another physical item , the original collage, copied not as text but as image (icon), and subject to the attendant inaccuracies of the analog rep ro d u ctio n o f im ages. A n d th e ‘origin al’ sin th at gave b irth to th ese co p ied an d re-co p ied works of art was an act of failed translation, a failure to reproduce the meaning of a found text as it p assed fro m F ren ch to C h in ese.

Hsia Yü’s reproductive writing techniques have an unintended consequence.

48 Friction/Indescribable n .p .

49 Ib id .

223 Although Hsia Yü takes the poems in Ventriloquy a n d “w rite s th e m [so m e ] o th e r w a y,” th e e9ect on Ventriloquy itse lf is iro n ic a lly to $x it e v e n m o re $rm ly in p la c e a s a c o lle c tio n . In th e p o stface to th e 2 0 0 8 revised ed itio n o f Ventriloquy, H sia Y ü e x p la in s,

Facing my old works, I can never resist the urge to revise, but Ventriloquy c a n ’t b e re v ise d , because every word in the subsequent Friction/Indescribable ‘h a s its so u rc e’; e v e ry w o rd a n d line w ere cut and pasted from Ventriloquy. I c o u ld n ’t e v e n c h a n g e th e fo n t, o r e lse Friction can’t stand on its ow n, or it could stand but it w ould becom e a di9erent book, a di9erent th in g .

面對舊作我總無法克制改寫的衝動，但是《腹語術》無從改起，因為之後的《摩擦無 以名狀》可謂無一字無來歷，字字句句均由《腹語術》剪之貼之。 連字型也改不得，否則摩擦一書完全不成立，或者成立，但變成另一本書另一回事. 50

To alter the original after the copy has been made, she says, would be “to go back to the past and rew rite the future.”51 B u t w a sn ’t H sia Y ü ’s o rig in a l in te n tio n to tu rn o n e se t o f p o e m s into another, precisely to rew rite the future/present? W asn’t the entire idea to turn

Ventriloquy in to “a d i9e re n t b o o k , a d i9e re n t th in g ” ? H a s th e re v e rsa l in v a lu e o f th e c o p y and the original progressed to such an extent that the original now depends on the copy for its life–that the original must now be preserved in order to maintain the integrity of the copy–that the copy demands faithfulness from the original, rather than the other way around?

Critic Wan Xuting addressed Hsia Yü directly about the status of the original and the copy in an interview from 1988, asking,

50 Xia Yu shiji: Fuyushu, 3 rd e d ., 1 2 3 . U ltim a te ly sh e c h a n g e s e le m e n ts o f th e d e sig n : th e c o v e r im a g e , th e fo n ts fo r p o em titles.

51 Ib id .

224 It’s th o u gh t th at m o d ern ism em p h asizes in n o vatio n , o rigin ality, em p h asizes th e statu s o f th e original; p o stm o d e rn ism is th e lo ss o f o rig in a lity, so it a tte m p ts to re sto re th e sta tu s o f th e copy a n d e m p h a size s im ita tio n , re p ro d u c tio n , a n d a llu sio n . ⌧e p rin c ip le e le m e n t th a t strik e s people so much about your poetry is that you don’t avoid clich é, a n d y o u c re a te n e w m e a n in g by imitating, by alluding to clich és. ⌧is is a p o stm o d e rn p a ra d o x : m a k in g th e c o p y fro m th e original. H ow do you feel about this?52

Hsia Yü’s reply sheds considerable light on the status of translation in her work. As “the most fam ous exam ple of m aking an original out of a copy,” H sia Yü cites not W arhol’s Campbell’s

Soup Cans o r D u c h a m p ’s LH O O Q b u t Io n e sc o ’s ✏e Bald Soprano, w h ic h Io n e sc o h a d b e e n inspired to w rite by the style and content of his E nglish language textbook. Ionesco felt that the dialogs in his textbook w ere really theater, and he began com posing the play by sim ply copying them dow n. H sia Yü, inspired to study French by Ionesco article “⌧e Tragedy of

Language,” which describes the com position of ✏e Bald Soprano, h a s h e r o w n e p ip h a n y when the characters in her French reader (Le français et la vie) go to see a play–which turns out to be ✏e Bald Soprano. A s th e $fte e n stu d e n ts in h e r F re n c h c la ss re c ite th e le sso n o n e b y one and then together, she alone laughs to herself. “I suddenly understood som e very secret th in g s, ab o u t p eo p le, ab o u t lan g u ag e, ab o u t fo rm , ab o u t life. ‘A t th at m o m en t, I saw th e lig h t’” 我突然懂了一些非常神秘的東西，關於人，關於語言、形式，關於生命。「就

在那個時刻我看到了光。」53

Yet while H sia Yü casts ✏e Bald Soprano a s a p a ro d ic , ‘p o stm o d e rn ’ c o p y, h e r in te rp re ta tio n is p ro b le m a tic . ⌧o u g h the play m ay have begun as an act of plagiarism ,

52 Wan Xuting, “Zhi wei ziji er xie” 只為自己而寫, Xiandai shi 現代詩 12 (July 1988): 3 1 , ita lic ize d w o rd s in E n g lish /F re n c h in o rig in a l.

53 Ib id . 3 2 .

225 Io n esco exp lain s th at, as h e w ro te, th e text seem ed to ch an g e o f its o w n acco rd :

A strange phenomenon took place, I don’t know how: the text began imperceptibly to change before my eyes, and in spite of me. ⌧e simple, lum inously clear statem ents I had copied diligently into my schoolboy’s notebook, left to them selves, ferm ented after a while, becam e denatured, expanded and overIow ed. ⌧e repartee which I had, in careful and precise su ccessio n , co p ied fro m th e p rim er, b ecam e a ju m b le.54

What had been incontrovertible, factual formulas (“⌧e week has seven days”) became absurd, im possible statem ents (“M r. Sm ith, m y hero, now proposed that the w eek consisted of three days, nam ely: Tuesday, ⌧ursday, and Tuesday”55). W hat changed betw een the original and the copy was not just the num ber of days in the week, but, m ore im portantly,

Io n esco’s realizatio n o f lan g u ag e as th e m ech an ically-recited veh icle o f accep ted tru th s. “⌧e text o f ✏e Bald Soprano o r o f th e E n g lish (o r R u ssia n o r P o rtu g u e se ) P rim e r, c o m p o se d o f read y-m ad e exp ressio n s an d th e m o st tired clich és, m ad e m e aw are o f th e au to m atic q u ality of language and hum an behavior, ‘em pty talk.’”56 In a se n se , th e n , ✏e Bald Soprano is n o t a t all unlike much of Hsia Yü’s poetry in its deployment of clichéd language or situations–but it is not at all the reversal in status of copy and original that W an X uting had asked about.

For one thing, ✏e Bald Soprano is n o t re a lly a c o p y, so m e th in g th a t Io n e sc o h im se lf c la ri$e s; seco n d , th e critiq u e co n tain ed w ith in th e p lay is o f “sp eak in g b ecau se th ere is n o th in g personal to say, the absence of inner life”–precisely of the copy as evacuated of authenticity,

54 Eugène Ionesco, “⌧e Tragedy of Language: How an English Primer Became My First Play,” trans. Jack Undank, ✏e Tulane Drama Review 4 :3 (M a r. 1 9 6 0 ): 1 2 .

55 Ib id .

56 Ib id . 1 3 .

226 of the “universal petty bourgeoisie” as a bunch of copies.57 A lo n g w ith H sia Y ü ’s misunderstanding (intentional or otherwise), the ultimate conclusion she draws is also sign i$can t: w h ere Io n esco sees “th e traged y o f lan gu age,” its evacu atio n an d u ltim ate meaninglessness, Hsia Yü says she “felt completely the comedy of language” 完全感覺到的，

卻是「語言的喜劇」.58 “ Isn ’t it th a t w e e x ist in a c e rta in a g e , w ith in c e rta in re la tio n s o r form s, just so that w e can express the iron y of that age’s relation s an d form s? Is this a com edy or a tragedy?” 是不是我們處身於某一個時代，某一個關係或形式裡，只是為了表達

對那個時代關係和形式的反諷呢？這是悲劇還是喜劇呢？59

Here, as in Friction/Indescribable, th e p rio rity h a s re v e rse d fro m o rig in a l to c o p y, w ith the peculiar phenom enon that, in fact, our criteria have not changed at all. W hereas once w e may have looked to the original work of art for authenticity and creativity, now we $nd exactly those qualities in the copy, w hose im perfections are valued as exactly the kind of in n o v a tio n a n d o rig in a lity w e $nd m issing from m ost w orks of art. H sia Yü does not level the distinction betw een original and copy so m uch as ascribe the alleged qualities of the original to the copy. ⌧is reversal depends, as we have said, on the inexactness of the copy– in other w ords, it depends on analog technologies of reproduction. B ut w hat happens to the original and copy when the distinction has really worn o9–that is, in the digital age?

57 Ib id .

58 Wan, “Zhi wei ziji er xie” 32.

59 Ib id .

227 Poetry in the Age of Digital Reproduction

Hsia Yü’s second conceptual collection, 2007’s Pink Noise, is Fiction/Indescribable in th e d ig ital ag e. L ik e Friction, Pink Noise is th e re su lt o f a n o p e ra tio n p e rfo rm e d o n a ‘fo u n d ,’ or pre-m ade text. In this case, though, H sia Yü has m echanized the work considerably: the original text(s) are culled from English-language websites (and one French), and the operation–translation into Chinese–is performed by a software translation tool, the Apple program Sherlock.60 ⌧e re su ltin g tra n sla tio n is p rin te d a lo n g sid e th e o rig in a l o n transparency, the E nglish in black and the C hinese in pink, creating a visual cacophony on the page. In fact, the idea of printing on transparency had occurred to H sia Yü w hile she w as deciding on a form for Friction, b u t sh e u ltim a te ly u se d d ra w in g p a p e r fo r th a t p ro je c t

“because of C ézanne (in the end perhaps I saw m yself as an oil painter)” 為了塞尚的緣故

（最終我可能把自己當油漆匠看待）.61 F o r Pink Noise, th e a u th o r $g u re H sia Y ü id e n ti$es w ith has changed considerably. W hen asked in an interview by fellow poet A -W eng

阿翁 fo r On Time Poetry 現在詩 what exactly her role in all of this was, Xia explained:

I fo u n d a fo rm [fo r th em ]. ⌧e fo rm of th e p o em s an d th e fo rm of th e p arallel tran slation s; I

60 Suggestively, Apple was accused of copying another program , Karelia Software’s W atson, in the course of the developm ent of Sherlock. W atson, in turn, was a program meant to com plem ent Sherlock (“W atson Developer Speaks Out Against Apple; Plans Port To Windows” in ✏e Mac Observer, 2 8 Ju ly, 2 0 0 2 , retrieved 2 2 Jan . 2 0 1 0 ,

). D id W a tso n c o p y S h e rlo c k , o r w a s it th e o th e r w a y a ro u n d ?

61 “N im ao fum o,” Moca/wuyimingzhuang, n .p .

228 kept $nding sentences to throw to the translation software and then selected, cut, and pasted th em after th ey cam e o u t. I cu t an d p asted , b u t it w as all in th e co m p u ter, n o t lik e Friction/ In d escrib ab le w h e n I u se d sc isso rs a n d a n E x a c t-O k n ife a n d w a ite d fo r a g u st o f w in d to blow the sentences in my face. A lso , I w a tc h e d th e g e a rs tu rn . I lo v e w a tc h in g th e g e a rs tu rn .

我找到詩我找到形式。詩的形式與雙語對照的翻譯形式。我不停找句子。找句子與句 子相連時的音樂性, 我用的還是剪貼，但都在電腦?，不像“摩擦無以名狀”用剪刀、 美工刀還不時等著一陣風把句子吹來。 還有我看著齒輪轉動。我喜歡看齒輪轉動.62

Whereas as recently as 1999, Hsia Yü was still a poor typist who did not own a computer,63 she has now com pletely com puterized her operation. From oil painter running w ild across the canvas H sia Yü has evolved to a very di9erent m odel of authorship: a shaper of raw material (a sculptor), a combiner of voices (a conductor), a collector and processor of data (a scien tist), an ap p reciato r o f k itsch (a co llecto r), a recycler o f refu se (a d u m p ster-d iver). U sin g read y-m ad e m aterial attack s th e n o tio n o f au th o r as creative gen iu s, n o d o u b t, b u t it also raises h er to a h igh er o rd er, as an o rgan izer, a m an ager. In th e b egin n in g, th e earth w as without form, and void. And Hsia Yü said, let there be form.

But it is not only the creation of Pink Noise that challenges us–it is its production, and its reproduction. Betw een 1999’s Salsa a n d 2 0 0 7 ’s Pink Noise, th e w o rld c h a n g e d considerably. In that tim e, m usic, text, and im ages w ent from em bodied, m aterial things to be sold, possessed, and re-sold, to fully dem aterialized digital “m edia” existing increasingly in only a virtual space from which they m ay be borrow ed (“licensed”) for consum ption, or sim p ly given aw ay illegally o r at th e exp en se o f th e m in o rity o f u sers w h o are w illin g to p ay for “prem ium ” service. ⌧e reduction of a book to an in$n itely reproducible digital text n o

62 “A -W en g w en sh i.”

63 Salsa (T a ip e i: X ia Y u c h u b a n , 1 9 9 9 ): 1 4 3 .

229 doubt cam e as a blow to Hsia Yü, whose books were always to be coveted as much as physical, artistic objects as they were to be enjoyed as a speci$c em bodiment of an abstract poetic text. Pink Noise is H sia Y ü ’s re sp o n se to th e d ig ita l a g e : n o t o n ly in th a t it b o rro w s material from the characteristic textual productions of the internet, but also in that it approaches technologies of reproduction w ith a nostalgic longing for the days of the imperfect copy–the photographic print or the cassette tape–which, though perhaps lacking the uniqueness of a hand-m ade w ork of art, does take on an ‘aura’ of individuality when compared with the exact replications made possible by digital media. Even further,

Pink Noise is a d e lib e ra te p ro te st a g a in st th e e c o n o m ic s o f th e c irc u la tio n o f d ig ita l m e d ia , a detournm ent o f th e v e ry m o d e s o f te x tu a l p ro d u c tio n in th e in te rn e t a g e fo r a d e c id e d ly re tro work of conceptual art.

In m an y w ays, th e text o f Pink Noise is th e in te rn e t in m in ia tu re : a lo n g sid e m o re -o r- less canonical w orks of high or pop culture (W alt W hitm an’s “W hen I heard the learn’d astronom er” in “H ow soon and unaccountably I becam e tired and sick,” Philip Larkin’s

“A u b ad e” in “I sim p ly lo ve p eo p le to o m u ch so m u ch it m ak es m e feel to o fu ck in g sad ,” a bizarre/hilarious line from Song of Solom on 5:4 in “I’ve always been told to rem em ber this,” a poem by the young K arl M arx in “W e erect our structure in the im agination before w e erect it in reality,” K urt C obain’s suicide note in “I sim ply love people too m uch”), w e $nd an in v ita tio n to su b sc rib e to a m a ilin g list (“ I a m a n e x p e rt in n o th in g ” ), a c h a in le tte r (“ ⌧is has been sent to you for good luck”), blog posts by anonym ous authors (“W e were extrem ely

230 charming yesterday–and we’ll be even more devastating today”), an interview with Nick

Hornby (“I simply love people too much”), a forum discussion about Japanese erotic toys

(“⌧ey’re b ack th ey’re sad th ey’re talk in g ab o u t m ak in g a p o rn m o vie” an d “I u sed to th in k th at it w asn ’t g o o d to w rite so o ften ”), an d (n eed less to say ) an ad vertisem en t fo r lesb ian p o rn

(“H ow soon and unaccountably I becam e tired and sick”). N one is given any special preference or priority–we merely see the the record of one user’s browsing, the things that ju m p e d o u t a t h e r, lin e d u p a n d in d istin g u ish a b le fro m e a c h o th e r. ⌧e e d g e s th a t se rv e d a s boundaries between cut-up fragm ents in Friction a re e ra se d ; p a ste d in to a w o rd p ro c e sso r docum ent, each source text’s original context disintegrates, leaving only its ghostly suggestion behind. ⌧e internet does not cite sources (W ikipedia notwithstanding), its authors are anonym ous, its sutures seam less.

A second important feature of text on the internet is something so familiar to us by now that is easily forgotten: hypertextuality. Hypertext M arkup Language (H T M L), the basic program m ing language of the W orld W ide W eb (a protocol that had becom e nearly syn o n ym o u s w ith th e in tern et b y th e late-1 9 9 0 s), is b u ilt o n th e p o ssib ility o f creatin g n o d es of contiguity (links) between m ultiple “pages,” which allow instant transit from text to text.

As we mentioned above, Hsia Yü had considered the hypertextual possibilities of a tran sp aren t b o o k d u rin g th e w ritin g o f Friction/Indescribable.

I d isco vered th e w o rd “p alim p esect [sic],” w h ich is a kin d of sh eep sk in w h ich can m ak e hidden writing reappear with the help of a special chem ical solution. Baudelaire used it as a metaphor for memory. A feminist said, “but her thumbprint will emerge.”64 B e c a u se o f

64 Elaine Showalter said that in feminine writing, behind the dom inant plot, “an o th er p lot ... stan d s ou t in

231 people like Baudelaire and Roland Barthes and all kinds of whatever-ism s, I wanted terribly to u se an arch itect’s tran sp aren t vellu m to p rin t th is p o etry co llectio n . I w as th in k in g th at th e possibility of layers upon layers of insinuation and misinformation–maybe next to the $fth lin e of th e $rst page you w ould see the seventh line of the eighth page, I w as thinking other people would say this was “cross-referential”–was a bit exciting.

發現一個字叫做 Palimpesect，一種羊皮紙可藉特殊藥水重現隱匿的書寫。波特賴爾 用來隱喻記憶。女性主義說「但她的大拇指印浮現」。為了波特賴爾和羅蘭巴特和種種 什麼什麼主義的關係，我極想極想用一種建築師用的透明繪圖紙印這本詩集，想想 那層層疊疊含沙射影指鹿為馬的可能性——你可能在第一頁第五行旁邊就看見了第 八頁的第七行，想想別人又要說這是「互相指涉」——令人有點高興.65

⌧e kinds of collisions dreamt of by Hsia Yü do not quite happen, either in Pink Noise o r in th e W o rld W id e W eb w h ich $rst im p lem en ted h y p ertext o n a larg e scale. B u t H sia Y ü is attracted to the “insinuation and m isinform ation,”66 th e c o n fu sio n a n d m ista k e n n e ss, th a t could result from random textual contiguities.

A third important feature of the internet text is disposability. In a medium where nearly everything is preserved, it turns out that nothing is worth preserving. ⌧us poorly- written pages in desperate need of copy editing may disappear without ever attracting more th an a few d o zen visito rs, o n ly to live o n as zo m b ies in search en g in e cach es o r, failin g all else, on ⌧e Internet A rchive “W ayback M achine.”67 O f th e so u rc e te x ts in Pink Noise th at are lost,68 th e re is th e v e ry b rie f a n d p e c u lia r “ ⌧e y a lw a y s lik e d e a c h o th e r a g a in so o n ” :

bold relief like a thum bprint.” S e e “ W ritin g a n d S e x u a l D i9e re n c e ,” Critical Inquiry 8 .2 (W in te r 1 9 8 1 ): 204.

65 “N im ao fum o,” Friction/Indescribable n .p .

66 Hsia Yü’s original uses two four-character idioms, hansha sheying 含沙射影, (literally “spitting sand on a shadow”) or spreading groundless rumors, and zhi lu wei ma 指鹿為馬, literally “pointing at a deer and calling it a horse.”

67 .

68 I h ave n o t system atically d eterm in ed th e so u rces of all p o em s in th e co llectio n . G iven th e n atu re of th e

232 ⌧ey always liked each other again soon just as they did before ⌧is only made them like each other all the more ⌧at’s because it often rained without measure ⌧ey did so only when it poured

If I m ay in terject a p erso n al an ecd o te, w h en I $rst read “⌧ey alw ays lik ed each o th er again so o n ,” I w as u tterly p erp lexed b y th e w ay all fo u r lin es rh ym ed (p ro vid ed th at “m easu re” is read w ith th e stress o n th e w ro n g syllab le in lin e th ree) b u t h ad su ch w ild ly d i9eren t m eters, and in particular by the com pletely absurd $rst line, w ith its repetitive and contradictory adverbial phrases (“alw ays,” “again,” “soon,” “just as they did before”). W ho could produce a line of poetry like this? I turned to Google–not because I felt con$dent that the source texts of Pink Noise w e re a ll o n th e in te rn e t, b u t m o re a s a k in d o f le a rn e d re Ie x in th e d ig ita l a g e , out of a belief that any sentence, any line of text, would exist som ew here on the internet if it existed in the w orld at all. (H ere I am rem inded of poet K enneth G oldsm ith’s axiom : “If it doesn’t exist on the internet, it doesn’t exist.”) Sure enough, the search turned up an online poetry quiz designed to test “general poetic know ledge.”69 O n e o f th e q u e stio n s a sk e d th e read er to ch o o se th e $n al lin e fo r a p o em , so th at th e lin e w o u ld rh ym e an d scan w ith th e rest o f th e p o em . ⌧e fo u r ch o ices w ere th e fo u r lin es o f “⌧ey A lw ays Liked E ach O ther

Again Soon”–rather than four successive lines of a poem, which is how Hsia Yü presents them , they w ere four independent options. H ow ever, by the tim e I perform ed the search

(even b y th e tim e Pink Noise w a s p u b lish e d ), th e o rig in a l p a g e w a s “ N o t fo u n d ,” a n d in its

so u rce m aterial, it is lik ely th at th eir availab ility o n lin e is in a state o r m o re o r less co n stan t Iu x.

69 “W hat’s Your Poetry IQ ?”, Poetry.com , 2 0 0 4 , 2 8 Ju n e 2 0 1 3 , .

233 place, Google returned several personal websites whose authors had seen $t to reproduce the quiz in its entirety along with their results.

⌧is experience, I believe, exempli$es the economy of textual circulation that Pink

Noise engages w ith: the w orthless, ephem eral text, circulated lim itlessly but only valuable at the m om ent of encounter and im m ediately discarded afterw ard (the internet quiz), is copied into a print context and circulated in a far m ore lim ited, far m ore expensive form . O nce upon a time, the story would have stopped there. Com pare, for instance, Kenneth

Goldsmith’s work of conceptual writing Day, a c o m p le te tra n sc rip tio n o f th e New York Times for Septem ber 1, 2000, published as a book. O ne kind of printed text becom es another kind of printed text; m oney changes hands (m ostly m oving aw ay from the poet, it should be noted), prestige is gained, a line is added to a résum é or bibliography, perhaps an article or dissertation chapter is produced on the subject, and the poet moves on to his next work. In

2007-09, how ever, the story continues: imm ediately back onto the internet, where bloggers and discussion forum users take up the text, reproduce it in part, discuss it at length.

Obviously the original text has transformed in the process, not only moving from a low-brow to a high-brow context, but, interestingly, from an E nglish-speaking to a C hinese-speaking context. In the m eantim e, the original site has expired and disappeared. Pink Noise is a stic k in the spokes of the econom y of internet texts, a deliberate anachronism w hich allow s H sia

Yü to pursue artistic goals that are not com patible with contem porary media or their monetization.

234 The Poet in the Machine: Hsia Yü and Sherlock In an essay fo r th e p ro gram o f a 1 9 8 9 sh o w at th e A m erican M u seu m o f th e M o vin g

Im age called “H o t C ircu its: A V id eo A rcad e,” A m erican p o et C h arles B ern stein d escrib ed what he called “the experiential basis of the computer-as-medium.”70 ⌧e u se o f th e com puter is based around “the prediction a n d con trol o f a lim ite d se t o f v a ria b le s,” su c h th a t com puters are characterized by “invariance, accuracy, and synchronicity.” Ideally, com puters are a tool perfectly lacking in agency: they can only respond in predeterm ined w ays to the input given by the user. Yet, B ernstein w rites, “the com puter only sim ulates a sm all w indow of operator control. ⌧e real controller of the gam e is hidden from us. . . . W e live in a com puter age in w hich the system s that control the form ats that determ ine the genres of our everyday life are inaccessible to us.”71 O b v io u sly, B e rn ste in ’s re a d in g o f th e c o m p u te r a s a medium is based on a certain idealized, reductive understanding of computer behavior: tw en ty -so m e years later, w e m ig h t ch o o se to ch aracterize o u r in teractio n s w ith co m p u ters more by their unpredictability, their failure to perform as expected or demanded, their im p re c isio n a n d u n re lia b ility ; o r, c o n v e rse ly, w e m ig h t fo c u s o n th e u tte r e c le c tic ism a n d ephem erality of the content they provide and distribute, their potential to overturn existing stru ctu res o f au th o rity o n th e in fo rm atio n al p layin g $eld .72 If th e id e a lize d c o m p u te r a n d its

70 Quoted in Marjorie Perlo9, Radical Arti=ce (C h icago : U n iversity o f C h icago P ress, 1 9 9 7 ): 1 8 7 -1 8 8 .

71 Ib id .

72 Cases such as those of Julian Assange and Edward Snowden, the “human Iesh search engine” 人肉搜索引 擎 in C hina and the m isadventures of R eddit and 4chan users attem pting to identify the perpetrators of the

235 idealized netw ork convey inform ation in terse, predictable m essages free from am biguity or interference (“noise”), certainly our experience of the internet tw enty-$v e y e a rs la te r is characterized not by the absence of noise but by its presence w rit large, its ubiquity, to the point that the noise and the message are not only indistinguishable, but that we suspect the message itself might be merely noise to begin with.

Literary scholar W illiam Paulson, in his work ✏e Noise of Culture: Literary Texts in a

World of Information, d e sc rib e s lite ra tu re a s a sp e c ia l k in d o f c o m m u n ic a tio n th a t “ assum es its noise as a constitutive factor of itself,”73 so m e th in g o u tsid e th e sim p le p a ssin g o f in fo rm a tio n from sen der to receiver. C ertain ly, in a w orld in creasin gly characterized by m edia that attem pt to transm it a m essage directly and w ithout interference (advertising, product packaging, signs and instructions, brief electronic transm issions such as text messages or microblog posts), the quality of literariness may be located more and more in deviations from the com m unicative ideal, in the “noise” that interferes w ith com m unication. N o su rp rise, th en , th at fam iliar asp ects o f literatu re ap p ear to u s in th e vario u s n o ises an d failu res of com m unication in our electronic m edia: for instance, the word soup of spam e-m ails that attem pt to circum vent $lters that w ould identify spam by virtue of its getting to the point too quickly (for in stan ce by actually usin g w ords like “R olex,” “Z oloft,” “pen is en largem en t,” etc.). It w as in this m ess of confused and disposable electronic m essages that H sia Yü began to assem b le th e texts th at w o u ld b eco m e Pink Noise, b u t it w a s th e o p e ra tio n s sh e su b je c te d

Boston Marathon Bombings all come to mind.

73 Quoted in Perlo9 187.

236 th ese frag m en ts to n ext th at w o u ld tru ly test claim s ab o u t n o ise an d p o etry.

To com pose the Chinese half of Pink Noise, H sia Y ü tra n sla te d h e r fo u n d E n g lish texts into C hinese w ith the help of Sherlock, a program prim arily designed as a search tool, which formerly came bundled with Mac OS. Quite baXingly, (the theoretical possibility of) tran slatio n is still cited b y lin g u ists as evid en ce th at, as d isp arate as h u m an lan g u ag es are, th ey all fu n d am en tally “m ean th e sam e th in g .” 74 Yet the extrem e di6culties in volved in machine translation, that is, translation by means of a software algorithm, may be regarded as evidence that any potential com m on denom inator am ong languages is at the very least highly elusive and potentially limited. It is clear that Hsia Yü approached Sherlock not with th e h o p e th at it w o u ld p ro d u ce co rrect, id io m atic tran slatio n s o f h er so u rce text in to

Chinese, but rather that it might produce something more or less, something new and su ggestive. S h e w as n o t d isap p o in ted . “W h en h e (m y m ech an ical p o et) is righ t,” sh e says,

“he’s righter than right, and w hen he m esses up, he’s as w rong as could possibly be” 它（我

的機械詩人）對的時候它比對還對它糟的時候也再沒有更糟的了.75 N o t o n ly is th e machine “wrong” at least some, if not most, of the time, even when it is “right,” it is

74 French linguist Claude Hagège says as much in a recent blogged article on nytimes.com . ⌧e claims are so utterly confounding as to be worth quoting at length: “⌧ere exists an important activity which clearly show s that even though the w ays languages grasp the w orld m ay vary w idely from one language to another, th ey all b u ild , in fact, th e sam e co n ten ts, an d eq u ivalen t co n cep tio n s o f th e w o rld . ⌧is activity is tran slatio n . A n y text in an y lan g u ag e can b e tran slated in to a text in an o th er lan g u ag e. ⌧ese tw o texts express the sam e m ean ing. W e can therefore con clude that despite the di9erences betw een the w ays languages grasp the w orld, all languages are easily convertible into one another, because hum ans interpret th e w o rld alo n g th e sam e, o r co m p arab le, sem an tic lin es” (“Q an d A : ⌧e D eath of Languages” in Schott’s Vocab, 1 6 D e c . 2 0 0 9 , re trie v e d 2 4 Ja n . 2 0 1 0 < h ttp ://sc h o tt.b lo g s.n y tim e s.c o m /2 0 0 9 /1 2 /1 6 /q -a n d -a -th e - death-of-languages/>).

75 “A -W en g w en sh i.”

237 so m eh o w “righ ter th an righ t,” an ack n o w led gem en t th at even a tran slatio n th at is tech n ically correct m ight not produce the conventionally expected result, a phenom enon w hich (for

Hsia Yü) is even better than the conventionally correct translation. ⌧us Sherlock deviates from “invariance” and “accuracy” and, as a result, produces som ething resem bling intelligence, even personality, as opposed to the dum b predictability of the ideal com puter.

Here Hsia Yü begins referring to Sherlock in increasingly personal terms, $rst as “mechanical poet” and soon as “m echanical lover.” ⌧e word “software,” which in Taiwanese M andarin is tran slated ru an ti 軟體 (“so ft b o d y”) as o p p o sed to th e m o re literal M ain lan d term ru an jian

軟件(“so ft ware”), takes on an organic, even erotic overtone. H sia Yü has found the poet in th e m ach in e; its n am e is n o ise.

When Ding Wenling reviewed Pink Noise fo r th e China Times, sh e a sk e d H sia Y ü what pink noise was. Hsia Yü told her to go on the web and look for herself (no one has any right to claim ignorance if an internet connection is nearby–“Let me google that for you” or

LM G TFY has becom e a com m on sarcastic response to unnecessary questions in online discussions). Ding learned that pink noise is a kind of “noise that can cover up am bient conversation.” ⌧e de$nition is im precise, to be sure, as indeed internet research characteristically substitutes cultural associations or functional applications for de$nition.

Neither is the speci$c resonance appropriate here: Pink Noise, fa r fro m c o v e rin g u p a m b ie n t conversation, saves it, m olds it, repackages it, and contributes to it. “I found a form for th em ”: p in k n o ise, n o m atter w h at it does, is a k in d o f n o ise w h o se fre q u e n c y sp e c tru m h a s

238 been shaped in a particular way. Unlike white noise, which contains all audible frequencies at the sam e am plitude (and hence sounds harsh), pink noise is w hite noise $ltered at th e rate o f

3dB per octave, thus skewed tow ards low er frequencies (“pink” by analogy to light with more low -frequency com ponents than high-frequency com ponents, w hile w hite light like w hite noise contains the entire spectrum in equal measure). Hsia Yü has not cancelled out the idle chatter; she doesn’t silence it, she shapes it and prom ulgates it.

Hsia Yü gathers the noise around her, harmonizes it, molds it; where other poets working in Chinese are making poetry on th e in te rn e t, H sia Y ü h a s m a d e a p o e try of th e internet–and perversely decided to circulate it as an old-fashioned physical object. Pink

Noise a lso re b e ls in a n o th e r w a y : a t th e sa m e tim e a s H sia Y ü fra m e s th e C h in e se la n g u a g e itse lf, se ttin g it o 9 against E nglish and French, she chooses a C hinese so confused and corrupted as to be alm ost ridiculous. H sia Yü has never particularly em phasized her national or ethnic identity, preferring to associate herself with an international (prim arily W estern) panoply of avant-garde artists–Marcel Duchamp, Joseph Beuys, Jenny Holzer, et al. Pink

Noise is h e r $rst c o lle c tio n a fte r re tu rn in g to T a iw a n fro m F ra n c e , a n d o n o n e le v e l it dram atizes the act of migration that preceded it. Pink Noise b e tra y s a n o u tsid e r’s a ttitu d e to

Chinese: if we can see anything by overlaying the originals and their translations, it is the gaps and $ssures that em erge when we translate ourselves and our experiences from one language to another. N o w onder, then, that Pink Noise sh o u ld sh o w u s o u r o w n fa c e s w h e n we are not careful. On a larger level, Pink Noise g e stu re s a t th e tro u b le so m e , e m e rg e n t

239 in e q u a litie s th a t p la g u e th e d ig ita l re a lm , im p lic itly a sk in g w h o g e ts to re a d o rig in a ls, a n d who has to read bad translations. It is the Chinese half of Pink Noise th a t is re le g a te d seco n d ary, d erivative, fem in in e (p in k ) p o sitio n , an d th ere is h isto rical as w ell as literary cau se for th is fact: yes, H sia Yü valorizes th e in correct tran slation as p oetic, bu t at th e sam e tim e, th e o rig in al ju n k m ail an d ad vertisem en ts fo r p o rn th at in sp ired th e p ro ject w ere in E n g lish .

Is H sia Y ü a to u rist o n th e E n g lish -lan g u ag e in tern et, o r is E n g lish , in so m e sen se, th e internet’s native language? W hy does H sia Yü choose to avoid the C hinese-language internet

(th e m ajo rity o f w h o se u sers an d co n ten t w o u ld n o t b e T aiw an ese an d d o n o t w rite in traditional characters)? Whether the advent of the internet age is–for language, for languages, for poetry–a comedy or a tragedy is still unclear.

Postscript:

The Future of Chinese: Form and Information on the Chinese Computer

In 1 9 8 2 , Z h u B an gfu 朱邦復 (a.k .a. C h u B o n g -F o o ), th e T aiw an ese in ven to r o f th e

$rst Chinese-language com puter input system and the “father of Chinese com puting,” wrote a book explaining the stakes of introducing the C hinese language to digital m achines. ⌧e book covered everything from the basic elem ents of binary math to much broader concerns.

For Zhu, the com puter’s “importance is far greater than the autom obile, the airplane, the battleship, or the atom ic bom b. W hy? Because it is the crystallization of culture!”76 ⌧e com puter’s potential for coding and transm itting inform ation constitutes its greatest

76 Zhu Bangfu, Zhongguo diannao mantan 中國電腦漫談 (Taibei: Quanhua keji tushu gufen youxian gongsi, 1982): 6 0 .

240 advantage, but also its greatest threat, as inform ation that resists coding w ill be forever left outside. Zhu’s take on Chinese history–in terms of a stagnation that caused China to fall behind the West–is familiar, except that he places the blame speci$cally on communication tech n o lo g ies:

⌧e strength or weakness of a nation, the rise or fall of a people, is determined solely by its level of know ledge. A s the ancients said, “O ver ten years, you can grow trees. O ver a hundred years, you can grow people.” People’s behavior is determ ined by their ideas, and people’s ideas are determ ined by their know ledge. Looking back on history, the reason C hina su9ered such decline was because new know ledge could not be spread. ⌧is led to antiquated, closed- minded thinking, and as a result, we were left on the outside of the modern age. Going a step further, w hy couldn’t new ideas spread w idely? For one reason only! ⌧e lack of m odernized tools for com m unicating and applying know ledge; w ithout those tools, e6ciency w as minimal, and thus matters were obstructed and unrealizable.

國家的強弱，民族的盛衰，端視其知識水平而定。古人有言：「十年樹木，百年樹 人」，人的行為決定於觀念，人的觀念決定於知識。縱觀歷史，我國所以積弱不振， 乃新知識之不能普及。知識不普及導致觀念陳舊閉塞，因果相循，自棄於時代之門 外。再若進一步探究，為何知識不能普及？無他！傳播知識運用知識之現代化工具 缺乏，工具缺乏則效率極低，效率極低則窒礙難行.77

According to Zhu, without a Chinese computer–and not merely a computer that can display Chinese characters, but one which is operated according to Chinese gram m ar78 (th is was before the days of graphical user interfaces)–Chinese-speaking people risk allowing

English to supplant Chinese in governm ent agencies and places of business. In this scenario, a person w ithout English-language skills, says Z hu, w ould be quali$ed to do nothing except perhaps write martial arts novels, and even those would probably need to be translated into

English.79 A n d le st th e re a d e r im a g in e th a t su c h a n e v e n tu a lity m ig h t n o t b e so b a d , sin c e

77 Ib id . n .p .

78 Ib id . 2 2 .

79 Ib id . 2 3 .

241 after all the C hinese people had once given up their long robes for W estern-style shirts and su its, Z h u d isagrees:

I b elieve th at n o m atter p ast or p resen t, C h in ese or fo reign , self-resp ect is a co n stan t in hum an nature. Could our generation really give up the ghost to such an extent? Is it possible? Even a “mud bodhisattva” can thrive in the right environm ent.80 W e living people w ith given and fam ily nam es, a glorious history, and the resolution to strengthen our nation in the present, could we abandon our ow n mother tongue? Abandon our ow n ancestors? And lay th e b lam e o n o u r trad itio n al w ritten ch aracters? I can very serio u sly tell yo u , ab so lu tely n o t! And I would wager all I own that the twenty-$rst century will be the golden age when Chinese culture blankets the entire globe!

我相信古今中外，要面子是人性之常，我們這一代能夠不爭氣到如此地步嗎？可能 嗎？連泥菩薩都有“土”性，而我們活生生的人，有名有姓的人，有過光輝燦爛的 歷史，也有奮發圖強的現在，我們能放棄自己的母語？放棄自己的祖先？而歸咎我 們的傳統文字？我可以鄭重地告訴個位，絕對不然！而且我敢用我所擁有的一切賭 個東道，廿一世紀將是中華文化廣被全球的輝煌時代！81

⌧e chauvinistic turn in Zhu’s argument should not outweigh the very serious warning it contains: the technical ability to “inform ationalize” (zixunhua 資訊化 or xinxihua 信息化) a language or kind of data w ill com pletely determ ine its continued existence. If a linguistic message cannot be made into information–coded into the correct fo rm o r fo rm a t, th e

“inform” in “information” meaning originally “to give shape, to describe”–then it cannot be com m unicated in the com puter age. A nd if it doesn’t exist on the internet, it doesn’t exist.

Zhu’s viewpoint exhibits a characteristic Occidentalism which divides the world into tw o categories: C hinese and foreign (W estern). ⌧e crisis h e felt w as th e o verw h elm in g o f

Chinese culture by Western culture, something to be brought on all the more quickly by changes in inform ation technology. ⌧irty years later, the status of C hinese in the digital

80 A “mud bodhisattva,” according to a saying, can barely preserve itself, let alone help others.

81 Ib id .

242 realm is n o lo n ger an issu e: acco rd in g to an in tern et m ark etin g research gro u p , in 2 0 1 0

Chinese ranked second behind English and far ahead of number three Spanish.82 ⌧e questions that rem ain have much more to do with what viewpoints may be expressed, what in fo rm a tio n sh a re d a n d w ith w h o m , n o w th a t p u b lic d isc o u rse in C h in e se h a s e ru p te d in to th e d ig ital d o m ain . H sia Y ü ’s Pink Noise d o e s n o t p re se n t a n o p tim istic p ic tu re o f th e possibility of real dialogue between opposing viewpoints. It’s $ne to insist on the ludic

“co m ed y of lan gu age,” bu t th ere are tim es w h en “in sin u ation an d m isin fo rm ation” are n o t merely play, but sources of actual harm.

82 In tern et W o rld Stats < h ttp ://w w w .in tern etw o rld stats.co m /stats7 .h tm >

243 Conclusion

Poetry and Praxis

You believe that there is beautiful freedom in front of you

I co m p leted th is d issertation in 2 0 1 2 -1 3 , w h ile livin g in H o n g K o n g, a city w h o se rep u tatio n as a “cu ltu ral d esert” seem s q u ite w ell estab lish ed , if n o t en tirely w ell d eserved .

However, unlike Taipei, which was also my home during part of this work’s writing, Hong

Kong has no cafe culture to speak of and very little in the way of independent bookstores; even the opening of a branch of Taiw an’s Eslite 誠品 bookstore in Causeway Bay was a major news item last fall. And yet this is the city which rem inded me that poetry can still speak to pressing issues in the real world, that it prom ises som e hope for change, that it belongs on th e streets as w ell as o n th e p ag e.

Since the city’s handover in 1997, H ong Kong’s residents in favor of dem ocratic refo rm s, critical o f th e B eijin g G o vern m en t o r th e lo cal C h ief E xecu tive, o r o th erw ise dissatis$ed with the status quo have increasingly taken to the streets to make their voices heard. ⌧e past calendar year has seen a successful movem ent to resist a China-centric

“n ation al ed u cation” (guom in jiaoyu 國民教育) curriculum in H ong K ong schools, the ongoing activities of the “O ccupy Central” 佔領中環 movement, a forty-day dock workers’ strik e w h ich d rew sym p ath y fro m activists an d stu d en ts, rallies in su p p o rt o f A m erican

244 whistleblower Edward Snowden, and well-attended annual protests on the anniversaries of

June Fourth and July First (the anniversary of the handover), despite heavy rains on both occasions. O ccupy Central is further planning a large-scale “civil disobedience m ovem ent” next July in an e9ort to force Beijing to make good on its prom ise of universal su9rage.1

In th e m id st o f th is in creasin g p referen ce fo r “actio n ” 行動—and at a tim e w hen a

Beijing lawm akers are warning the new M+ museum that “works that are indecent, vulgar, political and insulting are not works of art”2–a thick volume of poetry titled We Are All Li

Wangyang 我們都是李旺陽 was distributed for free at the July First protest.3 ⌧e a n th o lo g y is e d ite d b y K itty H u n g 洪曉嫻 of the literary journal Fleurs de lettres 字花, w ith a p re fa c e by poet Liu W ai Tong (Liao W eitang 廖偉棠) an d art b y w ell-k n o w n illu strato rs su ch as C h i

Hoi (Zhihai 智海) an d W ilso n S h ieh (S h i Jiah ao 石家豪). ⌧e m ore than one hundred poem s collected in the anthology, many anonym ous, were solicited publicly in 2012 after

June Fourth labor leader and dem ocracy activist L i W angyang 李旺陽 (1 9 5 0 -2 0 1 2 ) w as allegedly “suicided” 被自殺 so o n after th e en d o f h is m o re th an tw en ty years o f incarceration. A ccording to the preface to We Are All Li Wangyang, th e p o e m s a re m e a n t to

1 Eddie Luk, “Hot talk swirls on ‘occupy Central’ idea,” ✏e Standard (2 5 F e b . 2 0 1 3 ).

2 Vivienne Chow, “Artists worry government will try to control culture at new M+ museum,” South China Morning Post (2 4 A p ril 2 0 1 3 ).

3 Hong Xiaoxian 洪曉嫻, e d ., Women dou shi Li Wangyang 我們都是李旺陽 (H o n g K o n g: C h en X ian g ji tushu youxian gongsi, 2013).

245 serve as L i’s “p riso n n o teb o o k s” yu zhon g shu 獄中書,4 a n d L iu W a i T o n g e x p lic itly p la c e s th e book in the tradition of Lin Zhao 林昭, C h e n D u x iu 陳獨秀, Q u Q iu b a i 瞿秋白, a n d B o

Yang 柏楊.5 D e sp ite th e o v e rtly p o litic a l n a tu re o f th e p u b lic a tio n , L iu ’s p re fa c e d ra w s a distinction between poetry and reality, suggesting that poetry’s role in e9ecting political change m ay be lim ited.

What is poetry to do in a world like this? Reality comes before poetry. However much we may talk about poetry’s creativity or imagination, sometimes reality is even more absurd. Take for instance the paradoxical rhetoric of the term “suicided.” W hen it departs from literature, it becom es an in strum en t of cruelty. In tim es like these, poetry can on ly resist such absurdity, can only m end the w ound created in the spiritual w orld by such linguistic violence.

這樣一個世道詩歌何為？現實先於詩篇，我們說什麼詩歌語言的創造力、想像力， 有時竟然不及現實之荒誕。比如像「被自殺」這樣矛盾的修辭，原來當它出離文學之 後，就是一個殘忍的凶器。這個時候，文學就只能用以去對抗這種荒誕，去修補語 言暴力給精神世界製造的創傷.6

On the other hand, Liu suggests that the violence of the autocratic state is not only physical, but also itself spiritual, linguistic, even poetic–the absurdity of the political system and its machinery of oppression can only $nd expression through the linguistic innovation of a verb sim u ltan eo u sly reIexive an d p assive, bei zisha 被自殺. ⌧e h o rro r c o n ta in e d in th a t ungram m atical and paradoxical phrase is not found in a purely “linguistic violence”; it is rath er th e fact th at o n ly su ch a tw isted lin gu istic co n stru ctio n can cap tu re th e terrib le reality

4 “C huban xu: N i xiangxin qianfang you m eili de ziyou” 出版序：你相信前方有美麗的自由, Women dou sh i L i W a n g ya n g n.p.

5 Liao Weitang 廖偉棠, “ W o m e n d e y u zh o n g sh u , w o m e n d e y iy a n ” 我們的獄中書，我們的遺言, Women dou shi Li Wangyang n .p .

6 Ib id .

246 th at m ak es th e term so jarrin g . P o etry’s “o rig in al sin ” 原罪, a c c o rd in g to L iu , is th a t it c a n n o t

“rescu e h im or h er fro m a co n crete co 6n on e m eter by tw o m eters” 在一米乘兩米的水泥

棺材裡救出他或她, su c h a s th e o n e L i w a s re p o rte d ly p la c e d in a t tim e s d u rin g h is im prisonm ent, but there is also a sm all m easure of redem ption possible. “W e can only w rite our poem s with care, m ake a poem perfect and whole despite the im possibility of the situ atio n ; th is act itself is a ch allen ge again st savage tyran n y” 我們只能寫好一首詩，在不

可能的狀態下去令一首詩完美，這種行為本身就是對野蠻暴政的一種挑戰.7 ⌧e purpose of poetry put forward by this volum e is not only to record and to protest; poetry itself is a veh icle for freed om . ⌧e publishers of the anthology, in their prom otional m aterials and at their public events, frequently invoke a line from $lm m aker R ita H ui N ga Shu’s (X u

Yashu 許雅舒) co n trib u ted p o em : “Y o u b elieve th at th ere is b eau tifu l freed o m in fro n t o f you” 你相信前方有美麗的自由.8

Whether Liang Qichao or Hu Shi, the motivation behind the establishment of New

Poetry–the very purpose of the “revolution in the realm of poetry,” of renovating “language, words, genres, and formal conventions”9–was the promise of freedom. On the other hand, th is d issertatio n h as tak en as a m eth o d o lo g ical p rem ise A lth u sser’s w o rd s, th at th e id eo lo g ical will never announce itself as such, but rather denigrates ideology; the attention to literary

7 Ib id .

8 Xu Yashu 許雅舒, “ W o m e n d o u sh i” 我們都是, Women dou shi Li Wangyang n .p .

9 Hu Shi 胡適, “ T a n x in sh i” 談新詩, Hu Shi quanji 胡適全集 (H efei: A n h u i jiao yu ch u b an sh e, 2 0 0 3 ): 1.159; see chapter one.

247 form , to the structures that liberate us at the sam e tim e as they con strain us, can on ly follow th e lo g ic o f B ian Z h ilin ’s ap h o rism , th at “freed om is th e recogn ition of necessity” 自由是對

於必然的認識.10 M a n y H o n g K o n g lo c a ls w e re p e rp le x e d w h e n E d w a rd S n o w d e n Ie d

Hawaii for Hong Kong in May, claiming it was because of Hong Kong’s “spirited com m itm ent to free speech and the right of political dissent,”11 b u t m a y b e th e le sso n is th a t freedom , like ideology, does not announce itself as such. M aybe poetry can grant som e degree of beautiful freedom : never absolute, but never absent.

The Musical Turn

If lan gu age is a p riso n -h o u se, m ayb e an iro n h o u se, th en h u m an existen ce is sim u ltan eo u sly im p riso n ed b y co u n tless lan gu ages, co u n tless airtigh t stru ctu res th at en slave us even as they perm it us the only freedom we can know. Deconstruct one binary system and

$nd yourself trapped in another; mount any opposition too successfully and end up recu p erated b y th e very system yo u o p p o sed . P o etry’s p o ten tial fo r resistan ce o r su b versio n is just like that of any human action, limited–but also nonzero, and the prison-house itself may allow a certain amount of “play” (in the Derridean sense), on the inside if not the outside. David Lidov takes the “linguistic turn” and turns it another 180 degrees when he

10 Bian Zhilin 卞之琳, “ W a n c h e n g y u k a id u a n jin ia n : W e n Y id u o b a sh i sh e n g c h e n ” 完成與開端：紀念詩人 聞一多八十生辰, Ren yu shi: yijiu shuoxin 人與詩：憶舊說新 (B eijin g: S h en gh u o , d u sh u , xin zh i san lian sh u d ian , 1 9 8 4 ): 15. See chapter one.

11 Julian B orger, “E dw ard Snow den’s choice of H ong K ong as haven is high-stakes gam ble,” ✏e Guardian (9 Ju n e 2 0 1 3 ).

248 asks, inspired by R ousseau, “Is language a m usic?”,12 a n d m u sic m a y se rv e a s th e c o n c lu d in g model for this study. ⌧e $gures presented in this dissertation show a preference for wholes in ste a d o f p a rts, w h e th e r it is th e a n a lo g ic o n o v e r th e d ig ita l sy m b o l (H sia Y ü ), n a tiv izin g over foreignizing translation (H u Shi), the sym bolic over the allegorical (Li Jinfa), the organic over the analytical (Zhu Ziqing), or the dialectical over the individual (Bian Zhilin). W hen

Zhu Guangqian bases his poetics not on structures of di9erence but the resonances of sam en ess, th e resu lt m ay n o t b e co h eren t o r co n sisten t; it m ay glo ss o ver th e vio len t ru p tu res of historical change, but in so doing, it perm its, even tem porarily, a kind of genuine conIuence across illusory boundaries. For one brief m om ent, there is the forgetting of self, which may be the only true serenity.

August 1, 2013 Mong Kok

12 David Lidov, Is L an gu age a M u sic (B lo o m in g to n : In d ia n a U n iv e rsity P re ss, 2 0 0 5 ).

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