The Development of Chinese Versification Studies on the shih, tz'u and ch'ü 111 genres 1• By Kurt W. Radtke (Hamilton I New Zealand) As a result of my studies on versification patterns in hsiao-ling poetry of tbe Yüan dynasty I became more interested in tbe study of tlre nature of Chinese versification generally: In this paper I confine myself to an analy­ tical study of shih, tz'u and ch'ü versification z. lt can safely be said tbat tbe versification pattems of genres preceding tbe chin-t'i shih 131 fall into a com­ pletely different category and tberefore deserve a separate treatment3• In dealing with questions of Chinese versification the traditional terminology was generally found to be very useful. lt seemed however advisable to make an additional distinction between the two concepts 'prosody' and 'versifica­ tion'. Prosody and Versification The term "prosodic features" will be used to designate patternsthat arise from the recurrent use of identical or similar phonetic features in tbe whole or apart of a particular text. Metrical features differ from prosodic features in that such patterns are common to a variety of texts. The terms "prosody" and "versification" refer to the phenomena of prosodic features and metrical • The dates given for dynasties and persons were taken from standard reference works and do not pretend to be as accurate as possible. It is suggested that the reader acquaints hirnself with two previous studies providing a background on Yüan versification. a) JoHNso , D. K. "The Prosody of Yüan Drama" in T'oung Pao, LVI, 1970,96--146. b) ScHLEPP, W . San-ch'ü Its Techniques and Imagery, Madison, Milw. and London, 1970. 1 This article is based on a Ph. D. thesis entitled YUAN SANQUA Study of the Prosody and Structure ol Xiaoling Contained in the Sanqu Anthology Yangdtun baixue Compiled by Yang Chaoying which the author submitted to the Australian National University, Canberra, in April 1974, available from University Microfilms, Ann Arbor, MICH. 1 Shih refers to so-called 'new-style poetry' chin-t'i shih, the classical poetic genre which dominated the poetry of the T'ang dynasty (618-906). Tz'u is a generic name for poetic song texts; more specifically, the type of song poetry that rose to prominence during the Sung dynasty (960-1279). The ch'ü genre comprises operatic works as weil as short lyrical song texts. The dt'ü is usually associated with the Yüan dynasty (1280-1367, foUowing another tradition 1206-1368). Hsiao­ ling 111 are sbort lyrical song texts belanging to the ch'ü genre. 3 Also my study "The Influence of Chin-t'i Shih Versification on Hsiao-ling Poetry of the Yüan Dynasty", Papers on Far Bastern History, 6, September 1972, 129-140. (Please note: on page 131 the sentence concerned should read as follows: "If the last two characters in a line belong to the second tone class, the neighbouring even character may also belong to the second class ....") It appears that the division between p'ing and ts'e 141 tone classes, for purposes of versification, characteristic for chin-t'i shih and related genres, did not play any role in earlier genres. See below, p. 5--1. ( 1 ) ~ , ~ - , dß ( 3 ) jfrft~ 1 features. A good exarople for prosodic features exists in the following lines 4 froro a poero by Tu Fu : wu-hu, ho shih yen-ch'ien t'u-wu chien tz'u wu, wu-lu tu p'o, shou tung, szu yi tsu 161. Here, the recurrence of the vowel "u" constitutes a prosodic pattern in the sense of the definition given above 5• There is, however, only a sroall chance that this particular pattern will have been iroitated in other poeros; therefore it cannot be called a roetrical pattern. Metrical patterns are pro­ sadie patterns coromon in a nurober of texts dlosen for consideration. Because of the subjectiveness of this dloice, there will always be a certain aroount of arbitrariness in the versification rules established on that textual basis. By exduding from or induding texts into the basic sample froro whidl the patterns will have to be deducted the rules set up can either have a more specific or a more general dlaracter 6• As a point of departure for this study on Chinese versification I have taken the genre called chin-t'i shih with its different subgenres chüeh-chü l71, lü• shih 181 and p'ai-lü 191 (or ch'ang-Jü 1101) whidl are aii characterized by the same kind of metrical patlerns 1 • Alliines consist of either five or seven dlaracters (rarely six dlaracters}. The nurober of possible roetrical patterns for these lines is liroited. All patterns can be shown to follow the same general versifi­ cation laws. For reasons not yet wholly understood the p'ing-sheng is normally Contrasted with the three remaining tones in classical versification, thus forming two tone dasses, the p'ing tone class (p'ing-sheng} and the ts'e tonedass consisting of the shang, ch'ü and ju tones. The formal differences between the three sub-genres lie in the different nurober of lines. In all sub­ genres one can distinguish groups of four lines, between whidl simple rules are valid: the even dlaracters (i. e. the second, fourth, or sixth dlaracter) of the first and fourth as weil as of the second and third lines belong to the same tone dass with those of the first line contrasting with the correspond­ ing tones of the second line. In addition, the last dlaracters of the second and fourth lines rhyme; final rhyroe is optional in the first line. The remain- • The poem is entitled Mao-wu wei ch'iu-Ieng so p'o ko 151 (Tu Kung-pu chi, chüan 6, p. 25a-27bj; Tu Fu (712-770). 5 t'u, wu, tu, and tsu belang to the ju-sheng category and had originally an addi­ tionalfinalconsonant. 8 See below p. 11 , First Basic Versification Law. The inclusion of the special case treated there as an exception to the rule would necessitate an over-generalized for­ mulation for the first law which, in fact, would practically invalidate it. 7 The chüeh-chü consists of four lines of five or seven characters in each line; the lü-shih of eight lines of five or seven characters in each line. The p'ai-Jü may formally be described as a chain of several chüeh-chü. At times, the term Jü-chü 111 1 seems to be used interchangeably with chin-t'i shih. See Chügoku gakugei daijiten, 10?9; Cu'E Chung-fan, Chung-kuo yün-wen t'ung-lun, 178; T'ang shih hsüan p'ing­ shih, 217-323, contains a number of p'ai-lü poems. C5 J ~~~ fXJJd.JlJTfvf!X ( 6 J q~lff-® ~ Ii& iW ~][ j!llt~ ~ -~fif ~'**' /fl'JE (7) ~loj ( 8 ) $~ ( 9 ) fj~~ ( 10) !{~ ( 11 ) ~loj 2 ing tones are dlosen in accordance with some general or what I wish to call 8 Basic Versilication Laws • Basic Versilication Laws In lines with live or seven dlaracters, there is a caesura dividing the line into a final part A of three cbaracters, and a second part of two or four cbaracters preceding part A, called B. I. In part A, three tones of the same tone dass may never follow eadl other. There does exist the possibility of apart A containing tones from the tone dass ts'e only. Because of its rare occurrence I treat this case as an ex­ ception. 11. If B consists of four characters, the second and the fourth character must belong to different tone dasses. 111. A and Bare combined in such a way that the second and sixth characters belong to one tone dass and the fourth one to the other tone dass. lf B consists of two characters, the second and fourth characters belong to different tone dasses. There is one exception: if the last two dlaracters in a line belong to the ts' e tone dass, the neighbouring even dlaracters may also belong to the second tone dass with a contrasting second character in a seven character line belonging to the lirst tone dass. IV. The tones of the odd characters may be chosen freely; the only restric­ tion in addition to Law I is that if the last character of a line belongs to the lirst tone dass there cannot be only one character of the lirst tone dass separated from the last character. Positions in which tones may be chosen freely are called "unimportant positionsu. The laws presented here seem to have some advantages over most other attempts: 1) they recognize the important role of the caesura for the structure of a line;and 2) they concentrate on the versification of a single line Iü-chü and are there­ fore more useful in perceiving the affinity of tz'u and ch'ü versification with chin-t'i shih versilication even in cases when lines of different length appear in these genres e. 8 This is a slightly altered version of the Laws as first published in RAoTKE, In.lluenc~, 130--1. These laws were originally formulated as laws for isolated Jü-chü ~smgle lmes in chin-t'i shih whidl. do comply with the accepted versification rules) m order to show that these laws are also valid witb some modifications, for most lines in ch'ü compositions with four or more dlar~cters. • WANG Li (Han-yü shih-lü hsüeh 803 ff.) used different forms of Jü-chü in establisb­ ing a greatly simplified ch.'ü-p'u 1111.