CHAPTER SIX

POETRY OF THE HAN DYNASTY

No poetry from the Qin dynasty has survived. There is only a single reference, on the list in the Treatise on Arts of History of the Han, to some “Poetry of the Immortal True Man,” which may have been related to the First Emperor’s search for immortality. The poetry of the Han dynasty was quite different from that of pre-Qin times. The Book of Songs was of course widely read and studied by the educated, but composition of tetrasyllabic verse had declined, so what have been passed down in that form are only such hackneyed pieces of imitation like Wei Meng’s “Poem of Remonstration” and “Poem at Zou.” The Songs of the South originally belonged to the genre of poetry in nature but, by the Han dynasty, the rhapsody, which developed from The Songs of the South, had become a special form in between poetry and prose. Accordingly, the poetry of the Han dynasty primarily consisted of some new poetic forms. In particular, pentasyllabic poetry (poetry in five-character lines) gradually developed to maturity during the age, and became a basic poetic form of classical Chinese poetry later.

1. The Rise of Chu Songs

As previously mentioned, even during the Spring and Autumn and the Warring States periods, there was already a kind of ballad songs, different in form from those inThe Book of Songs, in the state of Chu, which have left some of its traces in ancient books. However, judging from extant documentation, the composition of such ballad songs did not appear to be very popular. In the process of the overthrowing of the imperial regime of Qin, the main force of opposition came from the region that had formerly been the state of Chu. By the Han dynasty, ballad songs that originated from the Chu region were thereupon, at one time, quite popular in the society, especially in the imperial court. They were known as the “Chu songs.” The earliest Chu song of the Han dynasty may be dated from Xiang Yu’s “Song of Gaixia.” It was during the fifth year of the Han reign, 126 chapter six when Xiang Yu, besieged at Gaixia by Liu Bang’s various troops, was at the end of his resources. In front of his favorite lady, Consort Yu, he sang with a solemn passion: Strong enough to move mountains I have the vital force that tops the world. Time does not work on my side, and my black horse gallops no more. My black horse gallops no more: what is there that I can do? Oh Yu, alas, my Yu: What can I do about you? In an age when women were subordinate to men, the cruelest mark of failure for someone of power was that his women were to be taken over by the winner and re-assigned to other men. The assumption about Consort Yu’s prospect, in a manner that was emotionally most irritat- ing, implied Xiang Yu’s rapid change of fortune, from arriving at the peak of success within the short time of only a few years to reaching the bottom in his downfall. The more he tried to preserve his pride and confidence in his personal abilities, the more one could feel the insignificance and helplessness of an individual under the great pres- sure of destiny. Such a tragic sense about the fickleness of fate seemed to have gradually permeated through Chinese poetry ever since the “Song of Gaixia.” As a triumphant hero, Liu Bang left behind his “Song of the Big Wind”: A big wind rises, and the clouds soar high. My prestige shines all around, I am back at my home town. Where can I find brave warriors to guard the four corners of my land? It was during the tempest of wars at the end of the Qin dynasty that Liu Bang ascended the emperor’s throne from the bottom level of society. The force of destiny that dominated such cataclysm was also something he found difficult to comprehend and felt uneasy about. From the Warring States to the Qin and Han period, Chinese his- tory went through violent upheavals for a long time, which in turn also accounted for the equally violent changes in the lives of histori- cal figures. Although there was a world of difference between success and defeat, the “Song of Gaixia” and the “Song of the Big Wind” both reflected the frustration and sorrow over the human condition in the world, which heralded the prospective increase of depth in terms of the subject matter of literature.