When Mistakes are Made in Music Playing, Someone Glanced”: The Evolution of Allusion Zhoulang Gu by Wu Yeweitao B.S. in Mathematics, May 2015, The Pennsylvania State University B.S. in Economics, May 2015, The Pennsylvania State University A Thesis submitted to The Faculty of The Columbian College of Arts and Sciences of The George Washington University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts August 31, 2018 Thesis directed by Jonathan Chaves Professor of Chinese © Copyright 2018 by Wu Yeweitao All rights reserved ii Table of Contents PROLOGUE .................................................................................................................. iv CHAPTER 1.INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................... 1 1.1. WHO IS ZHOULANG? ........................................................................................ 1 1.2. ALLUSION .......................................................................................................... 2 CHAPTER 2. POEMS WITH ZHOULANG GU IN A DIFFERENT PERIOD ............... 6 2.1. NORTHERN AND SOUTHERN DYNASTIES：THE POEMS IN HARMONY IN FRONT OF THE PRINCES AND MARQUISES’ HALLS ..................................... 6 A. BANQUET POETRY ........................................................................................... 7 B. WHO IS THE PIONEER？ ............................................................................... 10 2.2. EARLY TANG: TO SALUTE THE PAST SIX DYNASTIES ............................. 16 2.3. MID-TANG TO LATE-TANG: LOVER OR CONFIDANT?.............................. 21 2.4. SONG DYNASTY: WHO IS THE MAN TAKING A GLANCE? ....................... 32 CHAPTER 3. PERFORMERS 妓, THE DISAPPEARED MAIN CHARACTER ......... 39 3.1. PALACE STYLE ............................................................................................... 39 3.2 POETS AND PERFORMERS ............................................................................. 41 CHAPTER 4. ZHOULANG GU IN WORKS OF MONKS .......................................... 45 CHAPTER 5. CONCLUSION ...................................................................................... 49 REFERENCE ............................................................................................................... 50 iii Prologue At a grand banquet, a music player, sitting in the corner, is wheeling his fingers over the strings nervously. This is his first-time show after he finished the training. It is lucky that he didn’t make any mistakes. The sun sets, the moon rises, it was sudden that the banquet has been half over. Wine vessels click each other on and on and wine chips are spread everywhere. It is probably because of the perfect performing before this time point, or it is just due to the relaxed and comfortable atmosphere, the new player gradually eases his tight nerves, yet gives a discord tune. “Just a single one, the host and guests are all drunk, there should be nobody found out this.” The player consoles himself while looking around, just then catches sight of a pair of one’s smiling eyes. A handsome young gentleman at the table, holding a wine vessel in his hand, is looking towards him. There’s no blames and dissatisfactions in his eyes, they stop a while on the player’s face and musical instrument, then move to somewhere else. Even after many years, the player is still marveling at that moment. How skillful will the young gentleman be in music, which can make him be able to recognize a tiny mistake? In the alleys close to the player, a song singing by kids comes to his ears, “The music goes wrong, the Young Zhou will glance.” The story above is based on historical records but with imagined details. From the few words in Records of the Three Kingdoms, we have no clue to know how the glance happened and the specific scene. In order to be closer to the story so that we can have a better understanding of “glance the music”, I create this half true half imagined story and try to place us in that historical scene, or even to substitute into the music player to experience the feeling of getting a glance from the Young Zhou. This story might make it easier for us to understand the later usage and transformation of Zhoulang Gu. Before iv getting into this, let us focus on the main character Young Zhou (Zhoulang 周郎) first. v Chapter 1. Introduction 1.1. Who is Zhoulang? Zhou is a common Chinese surname and “lang” is an address for male, especially young man. The young man who glances at the player in the previous story is the famous general Zhou Yu 周瑜(175-210) of the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty(25-220). Zhou Yu was born in an elite family, and he made friends with Sun Ce 孙策(175-200), one of the founders of the Wu Kingdom (Wuguo 吴国) in the Three Kingdoms period, in a young age. He chose to follow Sun Ce and they two capture part of Southeastern China together, building up the groundwork of later the Wu Kingdom. In the year Zhou Yu arrived in the Wu area, he was just twenty-four, young and handsome, the soldiers and people in the Wu area all call him by Zhoulang which means the Young Zhou. Later on, he commanded the Battle of Red Cliff (Chibi zhi zhan 赤壁之战), defeated Cao Cao’s 曹操(155-220) army and won a great victory. His reputation has become even higher, and “the whole China has been amazed. 华夏是震”1. In Records of the Three Kingdoms (Sanguo zhi 三国志), “The Biography of Zhou Yu, Lü Meng and Lu Su” says: “When Yu was young, he concentrated on music. So even after drinking several vessels of wine, if there’s mistake (in music playing), Yu would definitely know it. After he recognizes it, he would certainly glance (at the music player who made mistakes). So people at that time created a song, “The music goes wrong, the Young Zhou will glance.”(Qu Youwu, Zhoulang Gu 曲有误，周郎顾) 瑜少精意於音乐，虽三爵之后，其有阙误，瑜必知之，知之必顾，故时人 谣曰：“曲有误，周郎顾。2 1 See Chen, Shou 陈寿(233-297), Pei, Songzhi 裴松之(372-451). Sanguo Zhi 三国志[Records of the Three Kingdoms]. Zhonghua shuju, 1982, p. 1266. 2 See Sanguo Zhi, p. 1265. 1 Chinese literati have a tradition of admiring the great people in ancient time. Zhou Yu, who has an elite family, reaches a high position at a young age, good at music, famous for magnanimity, with great political outlook and military prowess, undoubtedly will become the one they admire. He also becomes excellent literature materials. Poetry and prose which eulogize him have emerged endlessly, such as Su Shi’s (苏轼 1037-1101) ci poetry “Niannu Jiao: to Meditate on the Past at the Red Cliff ” 念奴娇 赤壁怀古 and Zheng Xie’s (郑燮 1693-1765) ci poetry Niannu Jiao: At Zhou Yu’s house 念奴娇 周瑜宅. Besides this, allusions related to him have frequently been used in poetry, such as zongjiao zhi hao 总角之好(“being good friends since young”), ruyin chunlao 如饮醇醪 (“like drinking great wine when associates with”). And Zhoulang Gu 周郎顾 (“the glance of the Young Zhou” ), due to the glory of Zhou Yu and legendary elements of the story, was not only a short record in history, but transformed into an allusion, glowing various radiance in literary works by literati from different time periods, became vivid gradually. And this thesis will trace the change and development of Zhoulang Gu, trying to analyze the reason of those changes from the literary and social preference of the time which the poems with Zhoulang Gu were created at. 1.2. Allusion Using allusion is a rhetorical device that has been widely used in classical Chinese literature. Using allusion, in Chinese yongdian 用典 (“use allusion”), or sometimes is called yongshi 用事, literally means “using event.” But actually using allusion does not only contain using historical event. Luo Jiyong has defined yongdian as a rhetorical device that to use ancient story or quotation directly or indirectly in one’s saying or writing with 2 a particular rhetorical purpose.3 Some scholars separate using allusion and quotation, but some use the English word using allusion to mean yongdian in Chinese. In this thesis, in order to make the term more clearly, using allusion equals to using ancient/historical story/event. However, in practical use, at many times there’s no distinct line between using ancient story and quotation. This phenomenon can be found in later discussion. 1.3. About this paper In North America scholars’ studies, not many of them touch upon allusions. Even if they are on allusion, the majority is focused on the use of allusion with an aspect of literary device study. And those studies mostly discuss how a specific literatus uses allusion in his writings, as part of his personal writing style. In this paper, I want to bring out a view that using allusion is not just “personal," it is “social." Confucius says: Book of Songs (Shijing 诗经) can be used to motivate one’s emotion, can be used to view how different the countries are, can be used to make friends, can be used to satirize. 《诗》可以兴，可以观，可以群，可以怨。4 Keyi 可以 means can use (it) to. Qun 群, literary means group or to gather. Lunyu Shuzhu 论语疏注 explains “keyiqun”可以群 as “can be used to gather with gentlemen and exchange ideas with them.” Although Confucius was just talking about the Book of Songs, in the later time, the range is widely expanded, and his words have been used for all poetry. In this paper, I will use the term keyiqun for the broader range. People can use poetry to make friends, conversely, gathering together can produce poetry. 3 See Luo, Jiyong 罗积勇. Yong Dian Yanjiu 用典研究[Studies on Using Allusions]. Wuhan: Wuhan University Press, 2005. Print, p2 4 Lunyu Yizhu 论语译注[The Analects with Translation and Annotation]. Translated and annotated by Yang, Bojun 杨伯峻. Zhonghua shuju, 1980, p.185. 3 Social intercourses between literati promote their poetry creation, and the gathering also affected the way the literati use allusions in their poetry. Based on this, I believe that allusions in poetry have the characteristic of qun 群 (“gathering”) as well. This “gathering” (qun) can happen between people live in the same time, it also can be across time, life and death. You can always find the shadow of the predecessor one poet admires in how he uses allusion.