Redefining Chinese Literature and Art [1st ed.] 978-981-13-3554-9, 978-981-13-3555-6

Table of contents :
Front Matter ....Pages i-xix
The Formation of the Concept of Xing in the Pre-Tang Periods (Jixi Yuan)....Pages 1-23
Xing’s Transformations After the Tang Dynasty (Jixi Yuan)....Pages 25-52
A Study of the Structure of Xing (Jixi Yuan)....Pages 53-66
Xing and Its Artistic Vigor (Jixi Yuan)....Pages 67-97
Back Matter ....Pages 99-106

Citation preview

Redefining Chinese Literature and Art Jixi Yuan Translated byy Perry W. Ma

Key Concepts in Chinese Thought and Culture

Published in partnership between FLTRP and Palgrave Macmillan, the Key Concepts in Chinese Thought and Culture offer a unique insight into Chinese culture, defining and contextualizing some of China’s most fundamental and at times complex philosophical concepts. In a concise and reader-friendly manner, these short works define a variety of quintessentially Chinese terms such as harmony (hé/和) or association (xīng/兴)—and examine how they first appeared and developed in Chinese culture, the impact they had on Chinese thought and why they continue to have significant meaning in China today. At a time when the understanding of different histories, languages and cultures globally is at a premium, this series provides a valuable roadmap to the concepts which underpin 21st century Chinese society. More information about this series at http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/16234

Jixi Yuan

Redefining Chinese Literature and Art Translated by Perry W. Ma

Jixi Yuan Renmin University of China Beijing, China Translated by Perry W. Ma Lane Community College Eugene, OR, USA ISSN 2524-8464 ISSN 2524-8472  (electronic) Key Concepts in Chinese Thought and Culture ISBN 978-981-13-3554-9 ISBN 978-981-13-3555-6  (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-3555-6 Jointly published with Foreign Language Teaching and Research Publishing Co., Ltd., Beijing, China The edition is not for sale in the mainland of China. Customers from the mainland of China please order the print book from: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Publishing Co., Ltd. Library of Congress Control Number: 2018963742 © Foreign Language Teaching and Research Publishing Co., Ltd. This international edition is exclusively licensed to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. for worldwide distribution outside of China 2019 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: © Melisa Hasan This Palgrave Pivot imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-01/04 Gateway East, Singapore 189721, Singapore

Publisher’s Note for “Key Concepts in Chinese Thought and Culture Series” (English Edition)

In the course of human history, the Chinese civilization has always been known for its long history and remarkable breadth and depth. In a unique geographical environment and historical development, the Chinese nation has nurtured academic traditions, humanistic spirits, values, a way of thinking, ethics and customs unfound elsewhere in the world. Those were expounded and sublimated by Confucius, Mozi, Laozi, Zhuanzi, Mencius, Xunzi and other ancient sages and philosophers, and encapsulated into thousands of highly concise and profound key concepts underpinning the brilliant and rich Chinese culture. Reflective of the supreme wisdom and rational thinking of the Chinese Nation, the concepts have come to be known as “key concepts in Chinese thought and culture.” They are the brainchild fostered by the Chinese nation in independently exploring and rationally thinking about the universe, the world, social norms and ethics, way of thinking and values. They represent the unique and most significant thought and civilization—hallmark of the Chinese nation. They are the greatest intellectual legacy of left by ancient Chinese philosophers to the contemporary Chinese and the most valuable intellectual wealth contributed by the Chinese nation to the world civilization. The past four decades of reform and opening up have witnessed continued growth of the Chinese economy and its comprehensive strength. As an active participant and contributor to globalization, China has been increasingly admired in the international community, for its national v

vi   

PUBLISHER’S NOTE FOR “KEY CONCEPTS IN CHINESE THOUGHT …

conditions, history, thoughts and culture. On the other hand, its basic research has fallen behind with the development of the times. No comprehensive and systematic collation and interpretation of the concepts on its thought and culture for introduction to overseas readers. No unified comprehension and interpretation of many terms, especially those reflective of the unique Chinese philosophy, humanism, values, and way of thinking. More regrettably, the lack of unified norms for their foreign translation has frequently led to deviation from their actual meaning, and consequently, confusion and even misunderstanding on the part of overseas readers. To ameliorate the above circumstances, we officially launched in 2014 the “Key Concepts in Chinese Thought and Culture Project.” Drawing on the excellent traditional Chinese thought and culture, the Project was focused on key concepts encapsulating the Chinese philosophy, humanistic spirits, values, way of thinking, and cultural characteristics, especially those with implications for the development of contemporary world civilization and in line with the common values of the human race. Those concepts were then interpreted in objective and concise Chinese and translated into English and other languages, for overseas readers to better understand the connotations and essence of Chinese thought and culture, and consequently to promote equal dialogue and exchanges between Chinese civilization and other civilizations of the world, so as to jointly build a community of shared future for mankind. So far, over 600 terms have been collated, interpreted and translated by Project experts and published by Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press (FLTRP) in six volumes in Chinese and English under the serial title of “Key Concepts in Chinese Thought and Culture.” However, due to style and volume restrictions, the historical context, semantic context, origin and evolution, academic influence and the underlying humanistic spirits, values, and modern implications haven’t been fully elaborated for some of them. To give overseas audiences a more comprehensive and in-depth understanding of them, FLTRP and Springer Nature have jointly planned the series “Key Concepts in Chinese Thought and Culture Series” (English Edition). Each volume of this series will be centered on one concept only or a couple of closely related concepts. The authors are required to examine in detail its historical context, semantic context, origin and evolution, and academic influence, based on the research findings in ancient Chinese literature. They are expected to unfold their elaboration around important figures in the development of Chinese thought and culture,

PUBLISHER’S NOTE FOR “KEY CONCEPTS IN CHINESE THOUGHT …   

vii

as well as their works, theories, and academic viewpoints. This series features comprehensive and original academic theories of independent research by the respective authors. Integrating professional studies with popular interest, it emphasizes integration of corroboration and exposition and equal emphasis on Oriental and Occidental scholarship. All authors selected are young and middle-aged scholars accomplished in the study of Chinese thought and culture. It is believed that the publication of this series will make it possible for overseas readers to have a more systematic understanding of the philosophy, humanistic values, academic perspectives and theoretical viewpoints underlying the key concepts of Chinese thought and culture, and a clearer understanding of the way of thinking, values, and cultural characteristics of the intellectual world of the Chinese nation and overseas Chinese. We are grateful to Harmen van Paradijs, Vice President of Springer Nature Group, and Myriam Poort, Editorial Director, Humanities and Social Sciences, Springer Nature, for their generous support in planning and publication of this series. Our gratitude also goes to Sara CrowleyVigneau, Senior Editor (Palgrave Macmillan), Springer Nature, for her insightful suggestions from the perspective of academic English publishing. August 2018

Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press

Preface

As an important part of classical Chinese aesthetics, the concept of Xing is integrated with a few concerns of artistic appreciation and literary creation, such as accidental objects, sights and disposition, and serves as a bridge over these contradictory relations for creative activities that feature both the aesthetic endeavors, which relate to feelings and aspirations, emotions and sights, and thoughts and objects, and the practice of independence and culture. It covers such a wide range of subject matters and relates to such a myriad of issues that it is socially multifold in a unique encompassment. It is a unique representation of Chinese aesthetic perception and individual experience, unprecedented and unparalleled for its counterparts in the West and other parts of the world. In her writing, “On the Relations between Images and Feelings in Ancient Chinese Poetry,” Professor Ye Jiaying once contended, “It is hardly possible to find an equivalent in the English scholarship for the translation of Xing.”1 Therefore, its significance cannot be completely defined without an understanding of its original and extended meaning in terms of the characteristics of Chinese culture. Xing first appeared with its aesthetic concept in the pre-Qin periods, the beginning of the recorded history. Writers of The Book of Songs originally experimented with the utility of Bi and Xing in creative production. Later, Confucius put forward the proposition of “Poems flourishes on Xing” and “Xing promotes Poems,” formally lifting it onto the podium of aesthetic learning. The appearance of The Rites of Zhou during the Qin and Han dynasties first proposed the concept of Bi and Xing, and ix

x   

Preface

then the Han Confucians compared Bi and Xing with their annotations on The Rites of Zhou. Their aesthetic effects were further elucidated in Preface to Mao’s Version of “The Book of Songs.” At the beginning of their study of Xing, one approach was like Confucius’ perception of Xing as part of poetry, emphasizing the psychological effect of reading The Book of Songs for expressing aspirations. Another approach took Xing as an integral part of Fu, Bi and Xing, perceiving it as the poetry-writing technique, based on the two points: thoughts provoking and metonymy, in that it was mentioned with Bi in the same breath, but carries more a connotation of metaphor. During the Han and Northern Wei periods, as the humanitarian awareness was on the rise and literature became an independent subject of learning, the society witnessed an evolution of Xing from its assistance to creating metonymy to a natural outflow, pushing its conceptual limits outward to a fresh artistic height transcending politics and religion and formulating an aesthetic concept of emotional reflection and significant implication. After the Tang and Song dynasties, many writers of literary criticism started to give further explanations in continued contribution of redefining and expanding it to make it a multi-dimensional field of aesthetics. For the targeted reader, it is suggested to generate true feelings on concrete objects; for the writer, it is suggested to express thoughts via sights; for the critical viewer of the subject–object integration, it is suggested to imply more than the scripted in an artistic state and create an enduring appeal. The study of Chinese aesthetic creation has eventually been grounded in this three folded import, a crystallization of Chinese culture on aesthetics. Xing emerged from dances in religious rituals of various nationalities formulated in interactions between life and arts in ancient China. In later times, those witch-crafted elements were gradually discarded, as the Chinese aesthetic learning grew with an increasing human independence and awareness and steadily steered into a port of academia, meanwhile drawing on the primitive cultural sources embodied in Xing in an attempt to reflect on weals and woes in times of challenge so as to glue life and arts experiences in producing a superb field of creation. This extraordinary legacy has been regarded as a great honor and pride. Today, it is revealing to us that without life experiences as the spring of Xing, artistic creation can be at best short-lived text composition instead of being brought to perfection. It is a bridge connecting life and creation and a transition bringing about the fruition of arts. Thanks to the

Preface   

xi

hereditary ties with the Chinese cultural tradition, Xing has retained the cultural values of interacting with nature, observing on scenes, and projecting thoughts into objects, which were molded in ancient Chinese history. Those primitively formed elements of instinct, impulse and individual character, despite their obvious signs of mystery, take on a positive air of invigorating an otherwise mediocre existence and constitute one of the worthy traditions in Chinese aesthetics, at a time when humans have been increasingly restrained by reasons and aesthetic studies shriveling up. Beijing, China

Jixi Yuan

Note 1. See Ye, Jiaying. Jialing’s Remarks on Poetry. Rev. ed. Shijiazhuang, China: Hebei Education Press, 1997, p. 33.

Praise for Redefining Chinese Literature and Art

“Jixi Yuan’s book gives a comprehensive review of the origin, development and features of Xing in poetry composition in Chinese literary history. The study exclusively focuses on heaven-man relations and nature-poet interactions to reveal the particular writing process of writers’ response to outside prompts and stimulations from natural sources, landscape and surroundings by originally innately expressing emotion in the early ages and later initiatively releasing thoughts of sorrow and longings for personal commitment and better life.” —Perry W. Ma, Professor, Lane Community College, USA

xiii

Contents

1 The Formation of the Concept of Xing in the Pre-Tang Periods 1 1.1 The Shaping of the Xing Terminology in the Pre-Qin Periods and Western and Eastern Han Dynasties 2 1.2 Living Activities in the Six Dynasties and the Evolution of Xing 12 2 Xing’s Transformations After the Tang Dynasty 25 2.1 The Development of Xing in the Tang and Song Dynasties 25 2.2 The Development of Xing in the Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties 42 3 A Study of the Structure of Xing 53 3.1 A Comparative Review of the Terms of Bi and Xing 54 3.2 The Thought-Dimension of Xing 61 4 Xing and Its Artistic Vigor 67 4.1 Xing and Its Form in the Pre-historical Life 68 4.2 Xing and Its Sources of Inspiration 75 4.3 Xing and Its Artistic Appreciation 82 4.4 Xing and Its Components 85

xv

xvi   

Contents

Bibliography 99 Index 105

Translator’s Words

The publication of Xing: The Artistic Vigor, written by Yuan Jixi, Professor of Chinese Classics at Renmin University of China, as part of the project “Key Concepts in Chinese Thought and Culture Series”, can be seen as an important and inevitable step in China’s modernization drive as its economy is gaining increasing momentum and the need for expanding its exports of “soft power” is put on the agenda, and as Confucius Institutes have mushroomed across the globe. Readers from all parts of the world interested in Chinese culture, philosophy, literature and arts will find the study of Xing crucial not only to their learning of the Chinese language and poetry but also to their understanding of Chinese history and society. It is clear that Chinese literature and arts originated in pre-Qin periods first in the forms of ballads and verse The Book of Songs and The Lament, etc. This study of Xing addresses topics of the evolution of Xing’s formation and variation through the ages on the basis of the concept of Fu, Bi and Xing and a myriad of different and conflicting perspectives held by poets and critics in history. It is a valuable analysis of those literary and aesthetic approaches. Yuan Jixi’s book gives a comprehensive review of the origin, development and features of Xing in poetry composition in Chinese literary history. The study exclusively focuses on heaven–man relations and nature–poet interactions to reveal the particular writing process of writers’ response to outside prompts and stimulations from natural sources, landscape and surroundings by originally innately expressing emotion in xvii

xviii   

Translator’s Words

the early ages and later initiatively releasing thoughts of sorrow and longings for personal commitment and better life. It may lead readers to the belief that poems are composed on the spur of sights as the unique property of Chinese poetry as repeatedly specified in this work, compared with the poetry from other cultural and ethnic backgrounds. Though the book does not address the production of poems that are thematically guided rather than spontaneously formulated, it is to the reader’s judgment through the reading. In addition, the author presents a thorough treatment of the role of Xing in the making of the poet’s meanings through the use of aesthetic qualities in light of figures of speech rather than diving into the discussion of the use of poetic skills such as rhyme and regular meters. The work emphasizes the significance of Xing in Chinese poetry for the natural ties between living and expressing and the aesthetic sublimity of unaffected creation, which is considered the salient contribution that Chinese poetry makes to the genre. The first two sections of the book, Chapter 1, The Formation of Xing in the Pre-Tang Period and Chapter 2, The Transformations after the Tang Dynasty, discuss a gradual development of poetry from free releasing of emotions in early forms to various transformations of seizing stimulating sights for sparks of thought, as poets and critics gain increasing awareness of Xing’s spontaneous message-carrying roles and take initiative to produce and evaluate works. Chapter 3, A Study of the Structure of Xing, comparatively examines the history of Xing as a separate poetic technique independent from the conventional blend of Bi and Xing and its unique assertive, message-intended property, as opposed to the descriptive function seen in Bi. The final section, Chapter 4 Xing and Its Artistic Vigor, provides a thorough study of various Xings in creation and application. In the translation, Fu, Bi and Xing are expressed in the pinyin system, as well as ci poetry, while Feng, Ya and Song are put in words, though those terms are generally used together in Chinese literature criticism, given the fact that the English version of Chinese terms and listing person names is not quite standardized. Hopefully, readers would not be discouraged by possible confusion at places. Perry W. Ma

Abstract

A term with multiple aesthetic implications, Xing is frequently mentioned in conjunction with Bi as “Bi and Xing” in the study of ancient Chinese aesthetics. However, Xing contains richer and more complex meaning, with its essential postulates first for provoked reflection and second for implication. Its aesthetic concepts originally appeared in the pre-Qin periods when the recorded history became available and gradually gained momentum in studies of Bi and Xing with the perspective of Confucian classics in the Han Dynasty. As the society grew more aware of human nature and literature was increasingly independent as a subject of learning in the Han and Northern Wei dynasties, Xing went through a transition from its implied message and analogy to representations of intuitive responses with a broadened range of definition. Since the Tang and Song dynasties, literary writers have contributed continued analyses resulting in an enriched perspective, fusing some basic concepts of letters such as “thoughts” and “sights,” and culminating in one all-embracing entity. Therefore Xing originated in the human instinct and impulse of the ancient Chinese but has retained the ancestors’ cultural heritage of responding to nature, observing the surrounding and expressing through scenery. In the perspective of aesthetics and artistic engagement, Xing is a springboard for an artistic career from a real life, a catalyst for creative production and one of the valuable traditions in classical Chinese study of aesthetics.

xix

CHAPTER 1

The Formation of the Concept of Xing in the Pre-Tang Periods

Abstract  Although the aesthetic concept of Xing was formulated in the pre-Qin periods when the recorded history became available, its application in expressing life experiences occurred in pre-historical societies. During the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern dynasties, the development of Xing, a key concept of the Chinese classic aesthetics, reached its zenith as the most important field of aesthetics and arts. Literature and aesthetic studies were no longer treated as an appendage of politics or ethics but as a valve head to let off first-hand feelings and a medium of thoughts. Keywords  Bi and Xing

· Fu · Mei and Ci · Seven feelings · Six forms

Although the aesthetic concept of Xing was formulated in the pre-Qin periods when the recorded history became available, its application in expressing life experiences occurred in pre-historical societies. As the people of those periods grew passionate for arts, pristine singing, music and dancing forms undertook transitions from general displays of emotion to the written composition of poetry, turning Xing into a means of reflecting social and individual experience and a link between emotion and thought. The aesthetic terminology was firmly grounded in the study of poetry and poetic criticism in the pre-Qin and Western and Eastern Han dynasties. © Foreign Language Teaching and Research Publishing Co., Ltd. 2019 J. Yuan, Redefining Chinese Literature and Art, Key Concepts in Chinese Thought and Culture, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-3555-6_1

1

2  J. YUAN

1.1  The Shaping of the Xing Terminology in the Pre-Qin Periods and Western and Eastern Han Dynasties 1.1.1  Bi and Xing in the Book of Songs The first use of Bi and Xing as a poetic technique occurred in The Book of Songs, in which it plays a primary role of metaphor on the prompting sight and provoked thought. For example, one of its well-known songs The Odes of Zhou and the South: Fish Hawks reads: Guan! Guan! Cry a pair of fish hawks, On a sand ridge of the river. A graceful good-looking girl, Misses a handsome man to marry.

The song begins with cries of a couple of fish hawks on a sandbar in a river, which bring into the mind of the poet longing for his beloved girl and hoping for marriage. Obviously, the first two lines are closely fastened with the following two. Therefore, some critics call them “Bi giving rise to Xing,” which is testimony to the mutual dependence of Bi and Xing, existing in each other and inseparable. Another case comes from in The Odes of Zhou and the South: Peach Tree goes: A peach tree is in full bloom; Its flowers blaze. The girl is homeward, Bringing good to household.

The poem gets triggered on Xing in terms of the peach blossoms depicting the bride’s beauty and giving the couple blessings on their happy marriage, indicating a link between the peach blossoms and the newlyweds, namely a figurative leap between the stimulation of Xing and a targeted message. Another type of Xing can be rather implicit. For example, The Odes of Bei: Cypress Boat describes: The cypress boat is floating forward, And aimlessly down the river. I toss and turn, unable to sleep; Who knows my sorrows!

1  THE FORMATION OF THE CONCEPT OF XING IN THE PRE-TANG PERIODS 

3

The song is first projected on Xing into the image of a small boat floating down lonely, signifying the miserable life of a deserted woman. Similar analogies can also be seen in The Odes of Bei: Valley Winds, “A valley breeze is blowing, carrying darkness and rain. Let us be one heart, and give anger no place.” With a portrayal of breezes and unexpected rains and overcast, the ballad expresses the anxiety of the heroine over her husband’s whimsical swings of mood. It figuratively juxtaposes the unpredictable stormy weather with the man’s violent temper with graphic vividness. Some cases of Xing in The Book of Songs are aimed at setting off the theme by contrast. For instance, The Odes of Zheng: Winds and Rains creates a clear air of desolation in capturing the girl’s longing for her loved one: Wind and rain, chill, chill! But the cock crowed kikeriki. Now that I have seen my lord, How can I fail to be at peace? Wind and rain, oh, the storm! But the cock crowed kukeriku. Now that I have seen my lord, How can I fail to rejoice? Wind and rain, dark as night, The cock crowed and would not stop. Now that I have seen my lord, How can I any more be sad?1

The song’s first three stanzas all begin with the crows of the cock in the wind and rain, delineating a young lady anxiously waiting for her loved one in the rain and yearning for joys of their meeting. Despite an obvious lack of analogical alliance between the first two lines and the rest, the atmosphere generates a touching sympathetic moment of love against a backdrop of sadness produced. Exactly due to this unique stroke of Xing for the first two lines, writers of following generations often singled them out from the text to illustrate individuals’ perseverance for the set cause and refusal to drift with the majority in the harsh and grim society. The use of Xing in The Book of Songs is fundamentally related to the convention of Fu, Bi and Xing in the study of Chinese poetry.

4  J. YUAN

Fu requires a straightforward narrative, and Bi describes in comparison. However, Xing is complicated. Therefore, the early critical study of The Book of Songs, Preface to Mao’s Version of “The Book of Songs”, makes no annotation on Fu and Bi but treats Xing specifically, revealing the latter’s complexity. But it is very difficult to distinguish Xing from Bi or Fu. Often, the true meaning of Xing can only be pinned down with its reliance on the other two. In his book, On the History of Chinese Poetry, Torao Suzuki, the noted Japanese scholar, said in discussing the relationship between Fu and Xing used in The Book of Songs that “If Fu provides a blunt description, Bi and Xing find themselves embodied in an object, depending upon a medium for indirect expression. Because of this sinuous presentation used on unconventional and sensitive topics, later readers often misunderstood the poet’s original meaning even on some transparent poems of the time.”2 His words hit home the predicament of the role of Xing in The Book of Songs and its interpretations in the ages to come. 1.1.2   Confucius on Xing In commenting Xing, Confucius “Getting stimulated, Observing, Xing to other factors of aesthetics, concepts and lay a foundation for He observed:

raised the well-known postulate of Grouping and Grievance,” relating in an effort to define some important the study of ancient Chinese poetry.

Why don’t let students read The Book of Songs? Reading it makes one stimulated with thoughts, capable of observing things, keen on the importance of socialization, and able to satirize and remonstrate with the high-ups. In the short, one learns to fulfill his filial duties to his father and in the long term one can serve the sovereign. In addition, one can learn more names of birds, beasts, flowers and trees. (The Analects of Confucius: Yang Huo)

This is Confucius’ summary on the learning of poetry with respect to education. Kong Anguo, a descendant of Confucius living in the Han Dynasty, noted that the attribute of Xing is “to cite examples and evoke analogies.” Similarly, Zhu Xi commented on its impact of “eliciting aspiration and thought.” In fact, they were mutually complementary. The so-called “poetry for stimulation” means enlightenment by way of “eliciting aspiration and thought.” An act of emotion, Xing counts

1  THE FORMATION OF THE CONCEPT OF XING IN THE PRE-TANG PERIODS 

5

on individual experiences of pleasure to draw inferences from each ­other’s cases and cite examples and evoke analogies so as to understand the life philosophy and rules and nature before eventually ascending to the top level of morality. It is evidenced in The Analects of Confucius: Ba Yi, for example. The essay recounted the truth dawning on Zi Xia, who learned from The Book of Songs under guidance of Confucius, that the moral character, established after rites were learned, became internal, while correct manners were external, upon the inspiration drawn from reading The Odes of Wei: Shou Ren, a song depicting Zhuang Jiang, wife of the Duke of Wei, “The pretty dimples of her artful smile! The well-defined black and white of her eyes! The plain ground for the colors.” According to some research statistics, there are 23 references related to Confucius’ citations of examples and analogies in The Analects of Confucius. If those used by his disciples are also calculated, the figure will amount to 35. Definitely, Confucius is good at drawing references of Xing from The Book of Songs in understanding of “citing examples and evoking analogies.” In addition, the so-called “poetry for observation” means “seeing the rise and fall of customs by reading poems” (Noted by Zheng Xuan). For Confucians, poetry and music reflect people’s desires and feelings that radiate social sentiments and that may manifest to the reader “experiences and lessons.” The so-called “poetry for socialization” refers to Confucius’ belief that if reading and finding himself/herself attached to the morals and sentiments conveyed in The Odes of Zhou and South and The Odes of Shao and South from The Book of Songs, one can undergo a course of character purification and treat others with benevolence so as to uplift the public morality and cultural growth. Another popular proposition, “poetry for remonstration,” is the most valuable of all in Confucian thoughts on arts. The well-known scholar Mr. Qian Zhongshu once argued in his “Poetry for Satirizing,” that it was the most brilliant cultural tradition in ancient China. According to Kong Anguo, it means “admonishing the superior with satire.” Confucius believed that the ruling clique interactions should be based on harmony rather than division, so subjects may mildly berate and courteously satirize the monarch since rebellion would be unacceptable. The way of serving the monarch is that “Do not impose on him but withstand the stance to his face” (The Analects of Confucius: Dialogues with Yang Xian), meaning that one cannot deceive the monarch but may get across the message with gently mocking words. Evidently in light

6  J. YUAN

of citing poems, the speaker takes no responsibility while the listener is to take caution in action. To take another approach, reading and composing poems provides a vehicle for grievances and rages at heartrending moments of life so as to sail into a delta of calm. In conclusion, Confucius thought that these four functions benefit one, in that “Near at hand one can serve the father and far away the king. One can also know more names of birds, beasts and grasses,” simply achieving the purpose of preserving rites via poetry learning. In general, the poetic property of “Xing, Observation, Socialization and Admonishment” contains the features of appreciation, cognition and education in study of aesthetics. Notwithstanding that they are parallel and complementary, Xing is crucial in promoting aspiration and thought while the others draw from it. In this sense, the classical Confucianism on The Book of Songs sets great store by the potential of Xing for promoting aspiration and temperament molding and helps to establish the idea of Xing as an independent formal study of ancient Chinese aesthetics. Furthermore, Confucius pointed out, “Xing originates in The Book of Songs, grows with the rites and matures by the music” (The Analects of Confucius: Taibo). Xing Bing, a scholar from the Song Dynasty, commented, “This section of The Analects of Confucius addresses the way of growing up to be a man of conduct and integrity. Xing means rising. Therefore, a person of letters aiming at becoming one of virtue should first read The Book of Songs; to be well behaved, one needs studying the rites; a full development of temperament arrives only after practicing the music. Clearly, without background knowledge of The Book of Songs, one’s writing makes no sense; without the rites immersion, one’s conduct is unaccepted. It is a forging process of intellectuality beginning with The Book of Songs and the rites and ending with the music” (Annotations on “The Book of Songs”). In comparison, Zhu Xi in his Collected Commentaries on the Four Books defined with a more confirming tone, “Xing, a source of thought. Poems, filled with sentiments in terms of both the upright and dishonorable, are meant for expression and communication. Their words and rhythms are melodious, touching, and quickly comprehensible. Therefore, they thrill beginning readers on poetry, instilling in them a desire for virtue and detestation of evil.” All these statements show that Confucius took The Book of Songs, the earliest collection of Chinese poems, as a textbook for cultivating one’s moral character and stresses Xing’s function for provoked thought. It is by far more influential on readers than the teaching of the rites. Reading

1  THE FORMATION OF THE CONCEPT OF XING IN THE PRE-TANG PERIODS 

7

The Book of Songs is the first step toward becoming well behaved on the rites and cultivating the moral character. Xing is viewed by Confucius as an aesthetic activity of promoting aspiration and thought and cultivating temperament. 1.1.3   Critical Studies on Xing from Preface to Mao’s Version of “the Book of Songs” From The Book of Songs in the pre-Qin periods and Confucius’ study of Xing to the Western and Eastern Han Dynasties, new theories arose. After The Book of Songs, along with the other four classics (The Book of Documents, The Book of Rites, The Book of Changes and The Spring and Autumn Annals), became the official textbooks in the reign of Liu Che, Emperor Wu of Han, studies on The Book of Songs became part of the official ideology of “disposing of all schools of thought and encouraging Confucianism.” Confucius’s “Xing for stimulated thought” and Mencius’s “Reading poems through the context” started to warrant a variety of applications made by scholars of Confucianism. So one of the representative writings by those scholars is Mao’s Version of “The Book of Songs”, of which the “Preface” and Mao’s Version of “The Book of Songs” (its annotations of The Book of Songs) present explanations on Bi and Xing and are considered as the classics in the Han’s study of The Book of Songs. The pre-Qin study of Bi and Xing was substantiated and extended in Preface to Mao’s Version of “The Book of Song”, which is generically viewed as a research of archives. It is an insertion in Fish Hawk Cries and serves as a general lead to the whole book. With the critical remarks of Zhu Xi and other writers, it is now widely accepted as an introduction recapitulating all chapters of Mao’s Version of “The Book of Songs”. It is a production of a group of writers including Confucius’s disciple Zi Xia and subsequent scholars such as the Eastern Han writer Wei Hong. But it mainly represents the ideas of the Eastern Han scholars and may be reckoned a guiding document by the Han Confucian scholars on The Book of Songs. In contrast to the sketchy, vague and loosely outlined comments strewn in the pre-Qin criticism, Preface to Mao’s Version features a study of Xing on the overall placement of Bi and Xing in the analysis of the poetry and perceives them as two essential elements of the system, so that Xing is lifted from the murky pond of nebulousness and mingled with concepts such as “eulogy and satire” or Mei and Ci and “seven feelings” to become a reciprocal unity that elucidates its

8  J. YUAN

two facades of effect in terms of theory and production, as explained in the annotations in Mao’s Version of “The Book of Songs”. In this regard, the contributions of Preface to Mao’s Version occupies a quintessential place in the study of Xing in ancient Chinese aesthetics. According to the authors of “Preface” to Mao’s Version, poems express emotion and create images, which are realized through the use of Bi and Xing, and posit “six forms”: The Book of Songs specifies the six forms: first, odes; second, exposition; third, Bi; fourth, Xing; fifth, folk and court songs; and sixth, eulogies. The ruler wants to disseminate a good social mood with the odes, while masses use them to chaff the ruler. When an implicit message of advice is conveyed, the speaker should not be to blame but the listener should behave with caution. That is the effect of the odes. However, the discarding of odes and folk and court songs leads to the decadent kingly reign, deceased rites, perishing government and religion, weakened family rituals. Histories of the state make clear records of government corruption, lament for worsened ethics, and harsh laws, and encourage reading and composing odes so as to change the status and retrieve old customs. Therefore, expressing emotion is of human inherent quality and promoting the rites is the ethical legacy handed down by the former sovereigns.

Here, the “six forms,” brought up together, is not the creation of Preface to Mao’s Version. In early periods, in The Book of Rites: Officers of the Spring, they are mentioned, “Masters teach the six forms: odes, exposition, Bi, Xing, folk and court songs and eulogies; the six ethnics are for the moral guideline and six tones for a complete set of music.” On the concept of the “six forms,” scholars generally have the consensus that the idea, raised by Kong Yingda in A Critical Study of Mao’s Version of “The Book of Songs” and Zhen Jian’s Version of “The Book of Songs”, that “the odes, folks and court songs and eulogies are the basic types of The Book of Songs. Meanwhile, exposition, Bi and Xing are the expression skills of The Book of Songs,” which give a general description of the odes, folk and court songs, eulogies as the styles and Fu, Bi and Xing as rhetoric presentation in The Book of Songs and highlights that Xing as well as Fu and Bi are creative skills often used in The Book of Songs. This idea can also be seen in Preface to Mao’s Version. However, Preface to Mao’s Version does not address the unique functions of Fu, Bi and Xing in detail. The earliest explanation in this regard comes from Zheng Xuan and Zheng Zhong, two Eastern Han classical

1  THE FORMATION OF THE CONCEPT OF XING IN THE PRE-TANG PERIODS 

9

scholars. In his The Book of Rites Annotated, Zheng Xuan remarked, “Fu stresses direct narratives on today’s rotten political affairs. Bi avoids outspoken reprimand and resorts to analogy instead. Xing features a figurative eulogy on a chosen equivalent for fawning upon flattery.” In addition, he quoted Zheng Zhong by saying, “Bi is to compare with an object; Xing is to embody an idea in the object.” Obviously, his understanding is a little one-sided: his definition of the purpose of Fu for political service on promoting good and discarding evil, that of Bi for “the follies,” and that of Xing solely for eulogy. Corrections were made by the following writers. Today in reading Preface to Mao’s Version, we see that the ideas of Fu, Bi and Xing actually are an issue of turning the sight and thought into one identity. Poems are written to reveal feelings and thoughts which are hardly expressive without a vehicle but can only be vented via tangible images. The study of ancient Chinese poetry carries on the tradition of implication so as for one singer to lead into a trio by utilizing the analogical and symbolic skills of Bi and Xing. The literary mood created this way expresses the heart and mind in an indirect, tactful, profound and moving tone. An extensive application of the technique of Bi and Xing, The Book of Songs demonstrates a withheld and tempered style. The recapitulation of the “six forms” in The Book of Songs, presented in Preface to Mao’s Version, is very insightful in indicating that one of the reasons for the book’s political and aesthetic values resides in the creative skills of combining sight and thought, graphically conveying feelings and thoughts and generating an appeal to the reader of “improving human relations and instilling good manners in the masses.” The writers of Preface to Mao’s Version, on the one hand, emphasize the unity between physical objects and feelings and thoughts in using the artistic skills of Fu, Bi and Xing, and, on the other, confine the treatment of Bi and Xing within the utilitarian limits of composing with Mei and Ci, subordinating the aesthetic independence of Bi and Xing to the goal-pursuing political service. This critical monograph makes an important point by stating, “The ruler wants to disseminate a good social mood with the odes, while masses use them to chaff the ruler. When an implicit message of advice is conveyed, the speaker should not be to blame but the listener should behave with caution. That is the effect of the odes.” This is one of the important ideas presented in Preface to Mao’s Version. Based on the head and end notes of each short poem, one learns, from the introduction to each song in The Odes and Folk

10  J. YUAN

and Court Songs, that twenty-eight of the songs are evidently for Mei, and 129 of them are explicitly for “satire” or Ci, which add up to 157 or more than 59% of all poems under those two major sections in The Book of Songs. Among them, sixty-seven are composed on Xing, six for Mei, and sixty-one for Ci. Those on Xing takes up approximately 58% of the total 116 poems. Evidently the writers Preface to Mao’s Version of “The Book of Songs” believed in the close affiliation of Xing with Mei and Ci. The “Brief Note,” attached at the head of each poem in this work, generally introduces the poem’s import of Mei and Ci. For example, at one place, it remarks, “‘The Broad Han River’ from The Odes of Zhou and South describes the virtue spreading far and wide. The virtue of the Duke of Wen is practiced over the south of Zhou when words of praise are heard at the shores of the Han River, so that the rites are preserved creating a perfect effect.” Another note goes, “‘The South Wind’ from The Odes of Bei depicts a filial son. When the kingdom of Wei is prevailing with wanton customs, a mother is worried about her seven sons. It is commendable for them to fulfill their filial responsibilities and relieve their mother of anxiety.” A further note observes, “‘A Male Pheasant’ from The Odes of Bei is a ballad composed with a vexed mind, sorrowfully narrating the time of the Duke of Weixuan, who wallows in debauchery neglecting state affairs and repeatedly dispatches troops to battlefields, making it impossible for husbands to return home and the couples grumpy.” In another place, it describes, “‘The Moon’ from The Odes of Cheng dismisses the Duke of Chen for womanizing instead of pursuing virtues.” In addition, the commentary recounts that “‘The Valley Wind’ from The Odes of Bei derides the Duke of You, as a result, sees people wicked and alienated from friends.” Also it notes, “‘The Irresponsible Ruler’ from Major Court Songs is written about the senior official Fan Bo persuading his fellow officials to remonstrate against the Duke of Li.” Originally most of those poems were hardly written for Mei and Ci, as pointed out in detail by subsequent critics. But in order to set Mei and Ci in a theoretical ground, the importance of Bi and Xing is overshadowed by that of Mei and Ci in the literary writings of the pre-Qing periods. In the Han Dynasty, some classical critics argue that in many poems discussed in Preface to Mao’s Version, the roles of Mei and Ci were originally written with the purposes of Bi and Xing. In The Book of Rites Annotated, the Eastern Han Confucian scholar Zheng Xuan states, “Fu features candid narration relating to the current political decay. For Bi,

1  THE FORMATION OF THE CONCEPT OF XING IN THE PRE-TANG PERIODS 

11

one shies from reprimanding corruption and instead achieves the result by comparison from Bi. As for Xing, the monarch’s virtue is analogized with something positive in an effort to shun flattery.” Tang-dynasty critic Kong Yingda claims in his The Rectified Interpretation of Mao’s Version: Reading the Preface that “Fu is for straightforward narration with no obliquity or concern about the likes and dislikes; for Bi the message can be conveyed through an image, due to a lack of audacity to vent the mind without reserve, juxtaposed in parallel on issues related to the ruler’s follies; Xing means getting stimulated for thoughts and words of praise and is therefore applied for analogies on the merits in front of the superior.” He also notices the indivisible ties between Bi and Xing with Mei and Ci. If the idea of Dong Zhongshu on the necessity for singing the praises of the ruler, Preface to Mao’s Version, in contrast, focuses on both eulogies and satires, constituting undoubtedly a new contribution stressing the poetry’s fundamental narrative power of venting grievance. This is obviously seen from Confucius’s “Poetry can express sorrow” to Li Bai’s “The poet composes in grief.” In Du Fu: A Sage of Sentiment, Liang Qichao asserts, speaking of the poet’s poems of sorrow, “Telling stories about one’s adversity and depicting dim moments of humanity is unmistakably meritorious because the aesthetic effect is equally achieved by providing oneself and the reader with joy. A piercing composition is also part of jubilance.” In this regard, Preface to Mao’s Version of “The Book of Songs” raises a critical concept from the canon of Confucianism in the Western and Eastern Han dynasties. In A Treatise on “The Book of Songs” Zheng Xuan states, “Poems of eulogy on the ruler’s exploits and virtues help him carry on with the good; those critical of his faults rehabilitate him by shaking off the evil. As a result, laws are accordingly reinforced, and the reader alerted to the risks.” His words show his belief in that “critical of faults,” expressed in The Book of Songs, is a very healthy practice for the ruler to reform his way of governance and also an exhibition of the poetry’s role of enlightening by education through “dealing with gains and flaws.” But Preface to Mao’s Version also considers it important for remonstrating by ridicules to be well controlled to avoid excessiveness by stating, “Mocking poems are to be good-willed and analytically read but not to be eliciting grudge to find faults with the poet.” Similarly, Zheng Xuan presents his explanation, “Promoting a healthy social practice through the monarch’s good conduct and ridiculing the ruler by deriding poems are both executed with analogy and no condemnation. Poetry

12  J. YUAN

is like the first two musical scales, and ballads are bland and devoid of chiding.” The explanation, made by Zhu Xi, proclaims lyrics of ballads as a carrier of admonition (Lu Zuqian’s Version “The Book of Songs”, vol. 3). Furthermore Zhu Ziqing, in his An Analysis of Poems Expressing Ideals: A Study of Fu, Bi and Xing, remarks, “Poetry is probably created on Bi and Xing.” The authors of Preface to Mao’s Version actually remind readers of the potential of poems for venting grievance but with mild, implicit mocks and oblique citations to the monarch for the purpose of saving face. In a united federal totalitarian country, under the cardinal guide of absolutely following the monarch’s decrees, subjects, if for the good of the ruler, must take cautions in raising reproaches in a genial and circuitous fashion. Admittedly, Bi and Xing are exclusively set on this basis. According to the authors of Preface to Mao’s Version and other Han’s learners of the poetry, the property of Bi and Xing, particularly that of Xing, can attenuate the contradiction between the subject and the monarch in putting forward nudging proposals. In light of this perception, Bi and Xing are incorporated into the aesthetic domain of Mei and Ci and generally deprived of their original fresh poetic vigor, drawn from life as shown in The Book of Songs. The statement of “poetry starting with emotion but ending with rites and rituals” made by the authors of Preface to Mao’s Version, failed to recognize the elements of grievance, as displayed The Odes and Lesser Court Songs, and eventually led to the trite critical convention of reading the “gentle and honest poetry” practiced in the succeeding ages.

1.2  Living Activities in the Six Dynasties and the Evolution of Xing During the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern dynasties, the development of Xing, a key concept of the Chinese classic aesthetics, reached its zenith as the most important field of aesthetics and arts. In that era, there came a rise of humanitarian awareness from the close of the Han periods, when literature and arts started to throw off the shackles of imperial autocracy and ideology and become fused with a consciousness of life awakened in the turmoil of the wars. Literature and aesthetic studies were no longer treated as an appendage of politics and ethics, but as a valve head to let off first-hand feelings and a medium of thoughts. The emphasis on Mei and Ci, practiced in the literature and arts of the Western and Eastern Han dynasties, broke through the cocoon of

1  THE FORMATION OF THE CONCEPT OF XING IN THE PRE-TANG PERIODS 

13

“improving human relations and instilling good manners in the masses” and escalated to an immediate awareness of the meaning of life. It lent to expression of the inner world on the scenery and events and sent messages by depicting the surroundings in an effort to combine seamlessly the artistic effect of Xing with rhetorical skills. This period truly witnesses a full-fledged unity of the structure and content and Xing, which, with its vigor bursting potential, retrieves and carries on the forces of the pre-historical arts and frees itself of the bondage of political duty imposed by the Confucian studies of the Western and Eastern Han dynasties. 1.2.1  Xing and the Awakening to the Meaning of Life In terms of Xing, the people living in the Wei and Jin times believed in free living. To some degree, this attitude takes life as aesthetic experience. It features an unconstrained life as one’s life goal, but the highest living state and presentation resides in freely viewing landscape and writing. To scholars of the Wei and Jin periods, human life was not free but limited by social factors. So, to transcend mundane affairs to the state of freedom relied on the application of Xing, with hills and waters as springs of creation and nature and composition as a bridge across the natural and free living. The genes and potential for freedom are innate with everyone, but to turn them into reality and obtain the highest level of experience hinges on the stimulation of Xing, a crucial transition. The people of the Jin Dynasties, influenced by studies of neo-Daoism, started to carry on extensive discussions on the meaning of life, which was often coupled with the appreciation of hills, waters and nature. Ultimately, they found themselves without the power but also existing in company with the natural world. It was not a static view but a perspective obtained with accident occurrences of thought-provoking living experiences. In the Ninth Year of Yonghe in the Eastern Jin Dynasty (in AD 353), Wang Xizhi, along with others, gathered at the Lanting Pavilion for a literary colloquium at a time purposely chosen to meet the March 3rd local fair and presented his “Preface,” part of which describes: Here the mountains are high and hills are steep, dense with green bamboos. In addition a limpid stream flowing and mirroring the surroundings, as we are seated nearby with wine goblets. Although shy of the sound of lute playing, we are content with the wine and poems in exchanging our

14  J. YUAN feelings. In a day of clear sky, fresh air and greeting breeze, I look up, amazed at the massive universe. I look down, meditating on our heaps of poetry, my wandering eyes satisfied as my ears entertained. It is absolutely delightful.

Wang Xizhi’s “Preface” to The Poems Collected at the Lanting Pavilion gracefully represents the beautiful landscape of Lanting in the Shanyin County in southern China on March 3 by the Chinese lunar calendar, with its clear sky, fine breezes, dense woods, and limpid streams, as well as the poet’s thoughts on the scenery and reflections on the meaning of life, which highlight his interest in the process of life rather than its beginning or ending. This was not posited by Zhuangzi, nor was the resultant reputation perceived by ordinary people, as it states: One’s moment of gratification instantly becomes a thing of the past, but the thoughts provoked by its origin can scarcely be erased from mind. The ancients said, “Birth and death are momentous events. What a disturbing thought!” Whenever reading those early writings about their reflections on the spur of the sight, I can hardly disagree with them on the meaning of life, saddened and gripped by them. I know that it is absurd to view life and death in parallel and to value a life solely on its length rather than on its quality. People in the ages to come would view us as we do those of the previous ages. What a lamentable repetition! Hence I am composing this piece about our gathering here today, attendants, and eventful occurrences. Although such types of narrative on a given topic may vary from writer to writer, the assertion of aspiration is uniform. It should be inspiring to readers of the future.

In this literary narrative, Wang Xizhi started with a depiction of the scenery, and extended to a discussion of life. In contrast to the eternal cosmos, human life is ephemeral, and it is even truer of the moments of joy. But the significance they bring to life is immortal. His writing mentioned Xing at three places: “the thoughts provoked by its origin can scarcely be erased from mind,” “whenever reading those early writings about their reflections on the spur of the sight,” and “the assertion of aspiration is uniform,” consistently betraying individual impression and the traces of Xing. In general, the poets of the Wei, Jin and Six Dynasties focused on the landscape’s extended meaning to human existence, and differed from their counterparts of the pre-Qin and Two Han dynasties in the perspective of Xing applications. The type of Xing, used in the pre-Qin

1  THE FORMATION OF THE CONCEPT OF XING IN THE PRE-TANG PERIODS 

15

periods, particularly seen in the three hundred poems in The Book of Songs, usually fastened the initial sights of grass, woods, birds and fish to one’s reflections on social affairs and individual adversities. Subsequent poets in the Han periods made contributions in seeing the attribute of Xing in terms of Mei and Ci, confining its play within the boundary of serving political purposes. But poets from the Wei, Jin and Six Dynasties, in their own right, further uplifted the application of Xing to individual experiences onto an observation of life as a whole, a quest for the eternal truth, an intellectual creation originating in living and transcending it as well, and a crystallization of reading life, which mirrored a predominant pessimistic outlook in those time periods. From this composition of Wang Xizhi, we notice his most concentrated topic in reference to Xing is none other than the pessimistic view that “birth and death are momentous events,” that is, a newly gained understanding of universal eternity, mortality and individuals’ misfortune. Life is short but the natural world is timeless. Therefore, seizing the brief moments of this world deepens one’s comprehension of the society and life and sets great store by short-lived encounters of joy. However, this is different from giving oneself up to momentary indulgences, as put forward in Liezi: Yang Zhu, written at the same time period as Wang Xizhi. Humans, in other words, are not birds or wild beasts, thanks to the formers’ potentials for gaining a higher level of experience. Neglecting this experience of merry-making carnivals reduces life to carnal survival. It is exactly the Wei and Jin outlook of realizing from and transcending the current world and the widely acclaimed intellectual worth. This quest for the meaning of life with respect to the rise of Xing is frequently seen in A New Account of Tales of the World. For example, During his stay in the capital city, Wang Xiaobo wandered one day to the front of his brother Wang Du’s house and asked, “What is the best line in ancient poetry?” Wang Du did not reply. Wang Xiaobo continued with a line, “All things I see have changed; I can hardly slow down aging.” (A New Account of Tales of the World: Letters)

At another time, Wang Xiaobo strolled about the capital for a “walking dispenser” (According to Mr. Wang Yao, it refers to the “Five Medicine Dispenser,” a walk after taking the five medicines for dispensing effects) and saw among the streets, none of the scenes and houses left in the same appearance as he had once known. He couldn’t help sighing on

16  J. YUAN

mortality. Obviously, taken from one of The Collection of Nineteen Poems, those two lines fall into the domain of Xing, emitting regrets at the sight for the short-run life. There are myriad poems of this kind in the Han and Wei poetic canon, intuitively composed with the device of Xing in interpreting life. Another familiar anecdote also comes from A New Account of Tales of the World about ambitious Huan Wen, which reads: During his northern expiation Governor Huan arrived at the town of Jincheng and saw the willow trees he once planted there in youth had grown tall with all the trunks ten arm spans around. He signed, “A tree ages so fast and what about the eroding effect of time on a man’ life,” as he helding the twigs, tears came rolling down his cheeks. (A New Account of Tales of the World: Speech)

A powerful official at the Eastern Jin Dynasty, Huan Wen, on his way of fighting north, stopped at the place where he held a post years ago. He saw the trees grown up. The scene prompted him to bemoan their incessant growing and man’s quick advance toward old years, marking the returned pessimistic theme in the Wei and Jin creation. It should be noted that this type of Xing, gushing out of a given accident mental state instead of previously being set for utilitarian aims, is different from that of the Western and EasternHan times, which is motivated with the figurative goals of Mei and Ci. However, we cannot deny its emergence from a source. Obviously in contrast, it rises from the immediate personal feeling and gradual nurture and culture and finally evolves into a deep-rooted mindset for expression, more meaningful than Mei and Ci. Therefore, its timely expression is just a natural run of course when conditions ripen upon a given scenic condition. This intellectually refined literary style is usually particularly appealing. Jia Dao, a Tang writer, explicated this way in addressing Xing in his The Secret Imperial Edict on The Odes of Zhou and South and Odes of Zhao and South, “Getting stimulated by sights is called Xing. The nature of Xing is of feeling, meaning the feeling spurred by external objects and relating to the internal mind. The inner desire is an irrepressible discharge so it is called Xing.” This is a genuine derivative of the basic definition of Xing of the Six Dynasties. Xie Lingyun was a more Xingcommitted poet. In The History of the Song Dynasty: Biography of Xie Lingyun, authored by Shen Yue of the Liang Dynasty, he was quoted

1  THE FORMATION OF THE CONCEPT OF XING IN THE PRE-TANG PERIODS 

17

as saying, “The county of Yongjia is known for its scenic spots, which definitely takes my fancy. Assuming the office here after leaving the capital, I feel dismayed in career. So I have toured the local counties on some ten-day or month long trip…leaving my official duties behind and indulging myself in penning lines of my pent-up melancholy.” Grumped at the Liusong’s reign, Xie often ventured out during his tenure as the country magistrate of Yongjia, visiting well-known hills and rivers and seizing every opportunity of inspiration on peculiar sights to phrase poetic lines and make a full play of Xing’s aesthetic potential. Hence, his creation was later acknowledged by Zhong Rong in his The Critique of Poetry: “He is well versed in poetry and quick in response to prompts, full of talent and capable of airing his mind.” His accomplishment is also acclaimed by Shen Yue in The History of the Song Dynasty: Biography of Xie Lingyun, as “unique stimulation and superb expression.” During the time of the Wei, Jin and Northern and Southern dynasties, it was a common practice for poets to seize momentary prompts for composition. For example, Cao Zhi committed this line to paper in his “A Poem Presented to Xu Gan,” “You were full of sorrow and discontent, so Discourses That Hit the Mark was well composed.” The poem “A Stroll in the Courtyard” by Bao Zhao reads, “When desiring to sing, I have no idea of what melody to choose; when intent on expressing my joy, I find myself in the company of no one.” Shen Yue, in his treatise “Preface” to The Biography of the Emperor Wudi of the Liang Dynasty, also remarked, “As the sun and moon move in alternation, I compose a ballad in a simple tune.” In The History of the Song Dynasty: Biography of Bo Daoyou, it was noted that “At Lingfeng I looked for a poetic brainstorm and completed a spontaneous line.” From The History of the Southern Dynasty: Biography of Wang Shuo, the author wrote, “In a state of delight poems are put down on paper and goblets of wine are gulped for days on a roll.” Xiao Tong, the crown prince of the Liang Dynasty, said in his “A Reply to the Jinan Magistrate” that “I ignore the utilitarianism of the world and cherish my abilities to write on spontaneous occasions. Objects provide me with hints and turn my thoughts into poetry.” From these remarks of literary criticism, it is clear that the concept of Xing became a deep-rooted aesthetic perspective of life in the Wei, Jin and Six Dynasties, which found authors and scholars consciously committed themselves to the creative state of transcending the worldly and melting into the external world.

18  J. YUAN

1.2.2  Xing and the Theory of Aesthetics As an aesthetic concept of the time, the idea of Xing was developed on the basis of the artistic tendency of the time and its study culminated in the unity of the aesthetic activities and awareness of artistic life. Zhi Yu (250–311), living in the Taishi Period of the Western Jin Dynasty, wrote his A Collection of Ancient Treatises with Classification and Annotation, a representative work of the Wei, Jin and Six Dynasties, contributing to the study of Xing. In speaking of Fu, Bi and Xing, he states, “Fu refers to description. Bi means analogy. Xing features rhetorical expression of realization.” His explanation does not present anything new, but his view on Xing is particularly insightful. He stressed the expression of realization, coherent with the literary tendency of emphasizing provoked ideas and spontaneous responses. Due to the loss of the other sections of his writing, we have few clues on his further contributions in this regard. Nevertheless, this proposition brought about an immediate impact on ancient Chinese literary criticism and at least broke through the fetters of perceiving Xing bound with Mei and Ci of the Western and Eastern Han dynasties scholars and inspired people to understand Xing by way of displaying realizations. In comparison, Liu Xie and Zhong Rong added a new theoretical contribution by considering Xing as an interaction between thoughts and objects. First, they believed in Xing as a personal artistic participation on impulse caused by an accidental sight. In The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons: Fu, he proposed, “Ascending a height one sees and expresses. Therefore the emotion flows out at the sight of the object so the message is accurate, while the object comes as an urge for an emotional release so the lines are elegant.” Here, seeing and expressing become the motor force of literary creation, and “the emotion flowing out at the sight of the object” and “the object coming as an urge for an emotional release” constitute a writing process of mutual dependence, scrapping the flawed belief of Xing’s sole role of “words on impulse,” held by Zhi Yu in his A Collection of Ancient Treatises with Classification and Annotation, and setting the pace and blazing a trail for others to follow in the theory of “emotion and sight.” Relating Xing with “emotion and sight” marks one of Liu Xie’s important literary contributions. The stand that Liu Xie took on the idea of Xing features its independence and differs from the meaning carried in the earlier analysis of the concept of Bi and Xing. The former focuses on the creative

1  THE FORMATION OF THE CONCEPT OF XING IN THE PRE-TANG PERIODS 

19

accidentalness and spontaneity primarily with no trace of serving for political purposes. For instance, in The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons: Muses, he observes, “A line of emotional expression is just like a gift to a friend; a provoked thought is like a letter in reply”; “the four seasons offers a myriad of surrounding sights, and a poet gets prompts at times of idleness”; and “Yin Zhongwen pens a poem on an autumn day of leisure.” In The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons: Fu, he also notes: “As for the grass, woods, birds, and all life on earth, they are sources of inspiration and subject to different responses.” Those citations demonstrate the same basic idea of Xing embraced in the criticism of the Wei, Jin and Six Dynasties, and generally agree with the approach of interest and provoked thought expressed by the Tang and Song writers. At the time, Liu Xie, with his The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons, perceived the concept of Xing on the basis of “the natural release of emotion,” indicating his pioneering insights and ability to draw on the advanced fruits of learning in the Han and Wei periods and his departure from those of Zhi Yu and Pei Ziye. Certainly, Liu Xie did not totally reject the conventional literary representation about the concept of Bi and Xing held by the Western and Eastern Hans writers. In The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons: Bi and Xing, he offered his own viewpoint: Therefore Bi is related to affiliation, while Xing refers to the act of rising. Proper analogs are affiliated with the message to be conveyed; the provoked emotion is grasped to release thoughtful comments. The rise of emotion establishes Xing; affiliated images provide ways of Bi in analogy. In terms of Bi, one expresses pent-up frustration for reprimanding; in terms of Xing, one resorts to mockery with figures of speech. As historical conditions vary from time to time, poets have these two distinct ways of expression for use.

Liu Xie holds a different position on Xing from Preface to Mao’s Version of “The Book of Songs”. First, he considered both Bi and Xing as an inspiring gateway to creation. It was indicated that not only the effect of Xing worked as the generating force as stated in “the rise of emotion establishes Xing” but “in terms of Bi one also expresses pent-up frustration through reprimanding.” Zheng Xuan, an Eastern Han Dynasty scholar, raised the viewpoint of Bi, Ci, Xing and Mei. Liu Xie clearly opposed it, in that Xing carried the technique of satire with the “implied

20  J. YUAN

analogy in satirizing.” Admittedly, Xing is much richer in meaning and more implicit in narration in comparison with Bi. In this regard, Liu Xie believed that the idea of the exclusive role of Xing in Preface to Mao’s Version of “The Book of Songs” stems from the perspective of “Bi explicit and Xing implicit.” The use of Bi unambiguously calls attention to given affairs as cited in his writing, including “garments are snow white” and “the two shaft horse are dancing.” But the use of Xing is more implicit. The so-called “writing metaphorically” originated in The Book of Changes: The Origin, as it stated, “views are formulated after consideration; evaluations are produced after calculation; changes are made after laying out guidelines.” Han Kangbo from the Eastern Jin Dynasty noted that “Drafting an outline takes on all aspects of the subject.” He meant that in proceeding with Xing, the poet took a series of steps of “pondering on the topic,” creating a condition of “arousing emotion,” based on external and internal minute and complex interactions, exactly as pointed out in The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons: Conception, “the deft carving springs from careful observation; elegant writings bud out from controlled analogy and stimulation.” Frequently such spontaneous signal and subsequent meditation may not appear transparent, but they set the stage for fertilizing ideas and consequently come into contact. For instance, the poem The Odes of Qin: Reeds from The Book of Songs has the line “Reeds are green at the river shore, and white dew is formed in the deep autumn,” and another poem from The Odes of Bei: Valley Winds from The Book of Songs carries the line “Valley winds blow incessantly and bring clouds and rains.” Both signify subtle associations between the scene and the subsequent mulling. Years later, Wang Fuzhi put forward his viewpoint in Desultory Remarks on Poetry from Ginger Studio, “The effect of Xing is generated both consciously and unconsciously,” to emphasize this unique function of Xing. According to Liu Xie, the characteristic of Xing lies in conveying a message through a life image and features the implicit rhetoric and a self-sufficient structure with a profound ambiguous affiliation between the medium and the targeted meaning, different from the apparent, easy-to-grasp meaning of Bi. It is so remarkable that “the chosen metaphor may be simple but the intended idea covers a broad range of subjects.” The subjects referred to differ between the positions of Xing and Bi, the former for the external analogy and the latter for symbolism. In The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons: Bi and Xing, the author applauded “the indirect satire through direct analogy” in the application

1  THE FORMATION OF THE CONCEPT OF XING IN THE PRE-TANG PERIODS 

21

of Xing and also stressed the technique of going from the outward appearance to the inner thought, beefing up the approach and reinforcing expression. Different from the position held by Zheng Xuan and his contemporaries in the time of the Western and Eastern Han dynasties, Liu Xie’s perspective of Xing prioritizes the theoretical façade of aesthetics and literature. He criticized the decay of Xing in the poetic production of the Han dynasties, “Duke Xiang of Chu listens to slanderous talks, but Qu Yuan remains loyal, carrying on the tradition of The Book of Songs in producing The Lament with a satirical unity of Bi and Xing. In contrast, the Han era saw the prosperity of literary works, but lost the rhymed cutting edge of mockery through its cringing yes-poets, wrecking the course of Xing in rekindling description and eulogy and spurring new waves of analogy, a trend gathering increasing momentum completely deviating from the past.” Between Bi and Xing, Liu Xie obviously chose to promote Xing and depreciate Bi. He believed that Bi could be used as a rhetoric skill in representing the appearance of things but Xing might be tapped for pouring out one’s heart and conveying frustration and sorrow, beyond comparison by Bi. Similarly, but more innovatively, Zhong Rong made a trail blazing attempt in The Critique of Poetry. Like Liu Xie, he built up literary creation on the basis of the mutual interaction between seeing and thinking. At the start of his Preface to “The Critique of Poetry”, he argued: “Scenery changes as seasonal weathers alternate; sights of landscape offer hints for composition; poets are inspired to rhyme graceful lines.” However, in comparison with Liu Xie, Zhong Rong not only focused on the prompting role that four seasons play but also uniquely cast an eye on the saddening impact on the reader imposed by various tragic experiences occurring in society, taking it as the direct driving thrust of poetic craftsmanship. In Preface to “The Critique of Poetry”, Zhong Rong presented the benchmark of assessing five-character poems: The five-character poetry ranks first in literary composition and appeals most to readers, so it is to the popular taste. Is it because it goes to lengths to describe the scene, recount the event, lay bare the mind and depict the outside world? Therefore, there are three ways of composing poetry: first, Xing; second, Bi; third, Fu. It is the ideal state of creation to uphold those three ways of writing together, carefully choosing each of them, vigorously reinforcing their styles and rhetorically adorning their commitment so that the writing leaves the reader with an enduring impression and the listener

22  J. YUAN with memorable experience. If only Bi and Xing are utilized, significance overshadows rhetoric, which feels awkward. If the technique of Fu is chosen for use, the drawback surfaces of leading to a superficial message, loose phrasing, fragmented idea and rambling composition.

Zhong Rong highlighted the functions and roles of the five-character poem. He believed that it dwarfed the four-character poem in comparison since the latter ran “long-winded but short of meaning” and failed to express the rich inner world. In contrast, the former, with its superior function, was expressive of meaning and scenery and dexterous in sketching feeling and objects, broadening the boundaries of the conventional art of Fu, Bi and Xing. Eminently he placed Xing on top of the rest, reshuffled the conventional order of Fu, Bi and Xing, putting it in the spotlight, and explained its importance as “the poem comes to an end but its meaning is inexhaustible.” His point of view undoubtedly drew on the theoretical study of “the relations between words and meaning,” a highly debated topic after the Wei and Jin dynasties. The so-called Xing contains the intent to bare one’s soul indirectly and the innermost feelings can hardly be put into words; that is quite different from likening something to another by way of Bi. In Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons: Bi and Xing, Liu Xie highlighted the placement of Xing and stressed that “the provoked emotion is grasped to release thoughtful comments” which is quite different from the effect of Bi. Zhong Rong took a different path in illustrating Xing’s unique connotation of “the significant message” by drawing on the idea of “the relations between words and meaning” from the Wei and Jin studies. To Zhong Rong, jewels of arts were the hybrid of content profundity and rhetoric supremeness. He gave much kudos to The Nineteen Ancient Five-character Poems, “It is indirect but pregnant with meaning; it is filled with a lasting tragic appeal.” In addition, Ruan Ji expressed the sorrow of the Wei and Jin poets in his Poems from My Heart, “Scenes are seen and sounds heard, but ideas go far and wide.” Not cocooned, ideas are “good for temperament molding and thought provoking.” In contrast, he lashed out at Zhang Hua’s poems, saying “the prosy language but a lack of imagination and the dexterous diction but ornamental style.” His so-called “lack of imagination” means the shallow intention complete with external accessories. Zhong Rong thought that a poem versified on Fu, Bi and Xing and coupled “with the vigor of the style and diction,” could not be top-notch “with lingering palatable phrases

1  THE FORMATION OF THE CONCEPT OF XING IN THE PRE-TANG PERIODS 

23

and resounding echoes.” He metaphorically saw a truly soul-touching poem as a palatable dish, a concept of “taste,” by grounding Xing in the poetic concept of “the poem coming to an end but leaving its meaning inexhaustible.” The theoretic study of “the intended meaning” after the Tang Dynasty and with the contribution made by scholars Wang Changling, Yin Fan, Liu Yuxi, Kong Hai, etc., progressed by leaps and bounds and was established as a new domain of aesthetics.

Notes 1. See Waley, Arthur. The Book of Songs: The Ancient Chinese Classic of Poetry, trans. 1st Evergreen ed. New York: Grove Weidenfeld, 1960, p. 85. 2. See Suzuki, Torao. A History of Chinese Poetry. Trans. Xu Zong. Nanning, China: Guangxi People’s Press, 1989.

CHAPTER 2

Xing’s Transformations After the Tang Dynasty

Abstract  During the Tang and Song dynasties, the understanding of Xing deepened in a new direction, which, drawing on the current cultural developments, took on a new appearance by simultaneously serving political purposes and aesthetic appreciation. During the Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties, a variety of schools of thought rose and developed in the study of Xing and made a few influential contributions. Among those, the ideas of “style,” “temperament” and “romantic appeal” are typical, enriching and broadening its definition based on independent systems of understanding of Bi and Xing, a key Chinese traditional interpretation of the object–response relationship. Keywords  Enrichment of Xing · The stimulation of Xing Voice of Integrity · Six Arts · School of temperament

2.1  The Development of Xing in the Tang and Song Dynasties During the Tang and Song dynasties, the understanding of Xing deepened in a new direction, which, drawing on the current cultural developments, took on a new appearance by simultaneously serving political purposes and aesthetic appreciation. In the early years of this time, Chen © Foreign Language Teaching and Research Publishing Co., Ltd. 2019 J. Yuan, Redefining Chinese Literature and Art, Key Concepts in Chinese Thought and Culture, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-3555-6_2

25

26  J. YUAN

Zi’ang put forward “the enrichment of Xing,” based on the Confucian perspective of Bi and Xing, and Six Dynasties writers’ idea of “the stimulation of Xing.” Drawing on their contributions, Li Bai and Yin Fan later espoused the beauty of “the pure, natural depiction and Xing’s enrichment and supernatural charm,” integrating the aesthetic perception of Xing with the national spirit of the Tang time. Further down to the midand late Tang times, poets like Jiao Ran and Sikong Tu accepted the idea of “thoughtful poetry” and combined the traditional idea of Bi and Xing with the “poetic mood” in an attempt to reduce the political didacticism of Bi and Xing and stress a new dimension of Xing with respect to mingling aesthetic experiences and rhymed elegance, which indeed laid the ground-breaking work in the Song studies of poetry shifting gravity onto a focus of simplicity and economy. Certainly, the dominant poetic orthodoxy of Confucianism was not weakened, as social crises had deepened and transformations of religion and laws continued since the Tang and Song times. Instead, it assumed a fresh air of theoretic representation and form. For example, Bai Juyi’s study of “Mei, Ci, Bi and Xing” and Zhu Xi’s new explanations on Mao’s Version, presented in his Studies on The Book of Songs, can be considered as contributions of redefining and reconstructing the concept of Xing. Meanwhile Yan Yu, with his Canglang’s Criticism of Poetry, advocated the view of “Xing’s sparks of interest” that also consolidated the conventional terminology of Xing. 2.1.1   Chen Ziang and His Study of “Xing’s Enrichment” In the early years of the Tang Dynasty, the rulers drew on the short-lived Sui Dynasty and strove to learn about historical lessons to tighten their grip on the reign. Emperor Taizong of the Tang accepted official Linghu Defen’s suggestion of revising the previous chronicles and assigned some historians the work of composing the annals such as The History of the Wei State, The History of the Zhou State, The History of the Liang State, The History of the Qi State, The History of the Chen state, The History of the Sui Dynasty, etc. Most of the works mercilessly lashed out at the rotten literary styles maintained toward the end of the Six Dynasties, pointing out their undeniable responsibility for the fall of the dynasties and alerting people to their dangers to the country. But those historians, while completing their political tasks, also made contributions to studies of literature and aesthetics. Cheng Ziang’s idea of “Xing’s enrichment” was formulated against this social backdrop. Cheng Zi’ang (661–702) was a literary writer and thinker

2  XING’S TRANSFORMATIONS AFTER THE TANG DYNASTY 

27

in the early years of the Tang Dynasty. Despite his early years’ flash of completing the jinshi level of the Imperial Examination, he had led a rugged life and was not considered valuable in the eyes of Empress Wu Zetian during her reign. Disapproving of her harsh governance, Chen repeatedly submitted memorials to her, who, though acknowledging his talents, turned a blind eye. Hence, Chen had been sidelined when the empress was in power. His feeling was expressed in his well-known Ascending the Gate-Tower at Youzhou and The Thirty-eight Five-Character Poems. He felt strongly attached to Poems of My Heart, penned by Ruan Ji, the representative of “The Voice of Integrity.” He bolstered the “Solemn and Stirring Style of Han and Wei” and led in a new wave of poetic reform. The main idea of Chen Ziang is shown in his “A Bamboo Poem to Dongfang Qiu,” which launched a scathing attack on the decadent literary practices toward the close of the Six Dynasties and at the same time declared his championship of “Xing’s enrichment” as specified in the following: Treatise qualities have been steadily on the decline for five hundred years. The robust style of the Han and Wei was discarded in the Jin and Song, evidenced in the currently available canon. I often idly explored the poems written in the Qi and Liang times and found them wallowing in bedizened poetic presentation but devoid of the enrichment of Xing. I often sighed for those past days, and my memories of those early great men left me in gloom over the continuation of this verbiage and ostentation and the hopelessness of reviving the fundamentals of The Odes and Folk and Court Songs. Yesterday I read your “A Poem on the Sole Paulownia Tree,” a great production unmistakably radiating the lost spirit and resounding with undulating tone, with the limpid language and melodious rhythm. I felt heartened with its clear sounds and lively views, which blew away clouds of melancholy and cleaned the dregs of depression. This is my unexpected hearing of the Voice of Integrity, which would leave the Jian’an poets with acknowledging smiles.

Although this is a written exchange between Chen Ziang and his friend, the content undoubtedly issued a declaration of literary reform for the Tang Dynasty. His first sentence “Treatise qualities have been steadily on the decline for five hundred years” is a summary of the rise and fall of letters following the Han and Wei periods. In spite of some one-sided views presented in the treatise, his analysis of the literature and calls for action are significant. The treatise “qualities” that he mentioned differ from the “qualities” that Han Yu referred to in what Chen meant

28  J. YUAN

“The robust style of the Han and Wei” and “The Voice of Integrity” and fully conveyed his worries about the political state and aspirations for freedom. His “decline of treatise quality” marks the loss of “The robust style of the Han and Wei” and “The Voice of Integrity” in the Jin and Song dynasties and their successors of landscape and obscene literature, as expressed in “wallowing in bedizened poetic presentation but devoid of Xing enrichment.” What he stressed on the “enrichment of Xing” is the portrayal of the society and poets’ life. The convention of Bi and Xing was tied with “explicit Bi and implicit Xing” and graphical description was applied for political intents, which Liu Xie held in his The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons. But Chen Ziang’s unique postulate about the “enrichment of Xing” placed more emphasis on individual experience and response. It generally carried on Zhong Rong’s viewpoint from “Preface” to The Critique on Poetry, urging significant meaning and implied messages. Such position is particularly evident in Ruan Ji’s Poems of My Heart. Chen Ziang, after reading Dongfang Qiu’s “A Poem on the Sole Paulownia Tree,” sighed, “This is my unexpected hearing of ‘The Voice of Integrity.’” Chen’s The Thirty-eight Five-Character Poems also represents a wistful longing for the “enrichment of Xing.” Although the mining on Xing was seen in the literature of the Qi and Liang dynasties, the contribution of this period was poised to sentimental writings, a far cry from its counterparts in the Jian’an and Zhengshi periods that contained a wealth of humanitarianism about life. Literary writers and emperors were obsessed with the apprehension of mortality and drowned in getting gratified with rivers and hills and reading about women at the cost of examining life values through the property of Xing. This tendency coincided with scholar officials’ irresponsible stupor, as best described in the line by Yu Xin, an immigrant poet to the North from the South, “I gulp my goblet of wine today; do I care my name will be mud after death?” However, in giving up that humanitarian nature of Xing, poetry and other literary forms would be stripped of their creative strength. Thus, Chen Ziang’s dismissal of the poetry of the Qi and Liang times by the words, “the bedizened poetic presentation but devoid of the ‘enrichment of Xing’” actually redefined the aesthetic values of letters. 2.1.2   Li Bai and Du Fu’s Perspectives of Xing Li Bai (701–762), styled Taibai, was a great poet in the Tang Dynasty. He, like Chen Ziang, took the resuscitating of the vigor of poetry as his

2  XING’S TRANSFORMATIONS AFTER THE TANG DYNASTY 

29

life career. Comparatively, Li Bai’s criticism of the Qi and Liang’s poetry for its “flowery language” at the expense of the “vigor of style” agreed with the theory of Chen Ziang. However, Chen Ziang highly valued the “Jian’an Poetry” and “the Voice of Integrity,” but took a negative stand against the literature since the Jin and Song dynasties. In contrast, Li Bai was rather mild in judgment and even enjoyed reading some of the well-known poets of those periods such as Bao Zhao, Xie Lingyun, Xie Tiao and Xia Huilian. Though he once said, “Creation, since the Jian’an Poetry, has decayed in flowery language,” he did not totally ignore the rhetoric elegance. What he rejected was the attitude of prioritizing the affected and stagy language over a simple and clear appeal. In the poem of eulogy he presented to Magistrate Wei Liangzai, he said, “Lotus flowers float on the cool water in the pond, natural and free of craftsmanship. Bold and free improvising from worldly customs, I am always waiting for your call” (“A Poem of Nostalgia to Magistrate Wei Liangzai of the Jiangxia Prefecture during the Tour of Yelang after the Turmoil and Imperial Amnesty”). Chen Ziang emphasized the “enrichment of Xing” while Li Bai focused on “Xing for loftiness and elegance,” based on his interest in combining thoughts with the landscape. In Ancient Airs: No. 35, Li Bai wrote, “A crude ballad is ludicrous and a skill of trifle skill dashes innocence.” He relentlessly mocked the style of ugly Lady Dongshi’s clumsy imitation and the Handan lad’s stupid walk learning and praised Zhuangzi’s adroit and one-go executing craftsmanship of the mason. He thought that, to restore the style of the ancient folk and court songs and odes, efforts should be made to reject the redundant language for rhetoric symmetry practised in the literature of the Qi and Liang dynasties. The poems he thought highly of from the Six Dynasties had been mostly composed in the mainstream natural depiction, “the vigorous spring grass on the sides of a pond” and “the placid waters of a clear river.” He wrote both the five- and seven-character poems and exhibited his straightforward messages in a lively poetic fashion. If Chen Ziang’s understanding of the “enrichment of Xing” sometimes led to an obscure reading due to word choices, Li Bai’s approach to the idea of Xing rested in purity, genuineness and freedom of formality. The former’s “enrichment of Xing” manifests an internal mind related act, while the latter’s way of Xing reveals an external heart-related feeling and exposure. This external expression does not turn great attention to Bi and Xing and Mei and Ci. Instead, it plows torrents of uninhibited

30  J. YUAN

language into depictions of social affair. In light of aesthetics, the goal is not simply for a reading of the inexhaustible implication but generally for an empathy conveyed via free, open-hearted emotion-appealing lines in order to create a unique personal writing style. In other words, Li Bai’s poetry turns the style of The Book of Songs and The Lament into a form of provoking thought and created image. This distinguishes Li Bai from Chen Ziang and signals the outstanding style of the prime Tang poetry from that of the dynasty’s early years. In his career as a poet, Li Bai primarily relied on the role of Xing in an out-flowing expression of his inner world, as he was clearly aware of its technical worth. Liu Quanbai, another Tang poet, commented in his treatise “A Proposal on the Renovating of the Tombstone of Imperial Scholar Li Bai,” that “He was well versed in poetry and talented for unconstrained expression. He often freely rendered phrases on provoked thoughts and probably could not be outstripped by the best of ancient times.” His assessment of “freely rendered phrases on provoked thoughts” is very accurate on Li Bai’s poetry. In Li Bai’s poetry, such consciously improvised lines of “unique stimulation and superb expression” are abundant, for example, “I put my pen to paper and the five mountains tremble; I am overjoyed over the vast blue sea” (“The River Song”), and “In the autumn I am inspired to write; I sing songs of Wuhui at the top of my voice” (“Sending off Prefect Ju the Number Ten”). Some of his lines were improvised on the scenery such as “I tour far and wide with rapture at the sight” (“A Tour to the Shrine of Tianzhu with My Nephew the Prefectural Governor of Hangzhou”), “I sing to the soughing autumn wind and the towering pine trees whimper to the nightly sky” (“Recalling Antiquity at Xianshan”) and “I feel cheerful in this autumn and do not believe it is lack of vigor” (“An Autumn Day at the Temple of Yao of the Lu Prefecture”). Some reveal his sentiments about the society such as “You will be parted from me for a thousand li journey; this goblet of wine can hardly quench my sorrow” (“A Farewell to Song Zhiti at Jiangxie”) and “You are returning to the secluded Boshan; my longing is soaring to the skies” (“Seeing Wang Shanren off on His Returning Journey to Bushan”). Still others offer his stirred commentary about the persons of the previous years and dynasties such as “Last night Ziqiu trekked through the snow in an area of Wu, excited and longing for his friend. The vast clouds in the sky shielded the blue mountains but were quickly dispelled by your strong desire to see me, leaving only the moon hung high” (“A Reply to Wang Shier’s

2  XING’S TRANSFORMATIONS AFTER THE TANG DYNASTY 

31

Drinking Solo”), “Xie Kangle would be amazed by my beautiful fur coat, poetic lines pouring from his mouth” (“Appreciation for the Five-colored Fur Coat Presented by Yin Mingzuo”), and “Your treatises are superb with the beauty of the Penglai fairy land and the Jian’an style of vigor; my poems are unique for the simplicity and purity of Xia Tiao. We are brimming with talents to soar over the blue mountains to the skies and embrace the bright moon” (“A Farewell to Li Yun the Annals Recorder at the Tower of Xie Tiao”). From these poems, one can see that the poetry of Xie Lingyun and Xie Tiao took Li Bai’s fancy so he carried on their gist of Xing in a spontaneous exposure of emotion and perspectives of the past. Thanks to his lively, genuine and untainted depictions in a popular, easy-to-understand vernacular, the unity of Xing and “sight” is a matter of course. Weng Fanggang, a Qing critic of poetry, once observed, “Both Ziang and Taibai found the gaudy, shallow poetry of the Liang and Chen dynasties loathsome and sought to return to the healthy patterns of antiquity. However, Ziang’s way of resurrection stemmed from an in-depth quest for meaning, while that of Li Bai was completed by way of confidence and freedom. Definitely both were successful. If the traditional form had been duplicated, how could they have represented the ancient style in an innovative light?” (The Shizhou Critique of Poetry, vol. 1). Obviously, Chen Ziang’s experiment had not completely shaken off the gauge of Bi and Xing. In contrast, Li Bai, with his breakthroughs, truly carried on the tradition of The Book of Songs and The Lament as well as the literature of the Han and Wei dynasties and, through his remarkable verses, and consequently became a forerunner of the prosperity of the prime Tang’s poetry in the development of Xing. Du Fu (712–770), styled Zimei, was a great poet of the Tang Dynasty, who asserted deep postulates of poetry covering a wide range of subjects. Acclaimed as “the yardstick of poetry throughout the ages to come” (by Shi Bing in his Annotations on Du Fu), the best of his works are represented in his works such as A Playful Quatrain. Like his poems, Du Fu’s views of composition, due to his personal experiences, show deep concerns about the country and people on the aftermath of “The An Lushan Rebellion.” He once praised the two poems by Yuan Jie, “Chongling: A Ballad” and “The Bandits’ Retreat and Harsh Magistrate.” In the Preface to “A Reflection on ‘Chongling: A Ballad’” he said, “I once again read a poem characteristic of analogy and spontaneity and styled with delicate, moving diction and therefore put down this companion piece.” Clearly, he acknowledged Yuan Jie’s satire via Bi

32  J. YUAN

and Xing. This mode of execution also radiates from many of his own works such as Three Officials and Three Farewells. But he did not return to the set route of Bi and Xing by Bai Juyi and Yuan Jie to emulate their patterns. Particularly in his study of the canon of the Six Dynasties, he apparently transcended many poets and critics in perception by absorbing their strengths of syllable, rhyme and diction. In A Playful Quatrain, he observed, “I draw on both the present and the past and am interested in the limpid and vivid phrases of my contemporaries” and “eliminate false formulism, stick to the style of The Odes and Folk and Court Songs, talk with peers and learn from others.” Not only did he absorb and draw on the exquisite forms of the Six Dynasties’ poetry, he also honored their attributes of the stimulation leading to enlightenment. One salient feature represented by works of the Six Dynasties lies in a display of supernatural charms. One difference between the studies of the Six Dynasties and the Western and Eastern Han dynasties is that the former’s cultivation of the inner supernatural charm from the outer appearance. In their painting career, Gu Kaizhi of the Eastern Jin dynasty, Xie He of the Southern Dynasties, and Liu Xie first proposed the concept of “the lifelike exhibition of enlightenment,” “the true-life presentation of enlightenment,” and “the unity of appearance and inspiration.” In light of representing the outside world, the digging up of the human inner world was of paramount importance as held in the literary study of the Six Dynasties. In light of the creator himself/herself, the idea of “meeting with the enlightenment” and “melting all narratives into enlightenment” should be encouraged, that is, the attitude of seizing every opportunity of seeing for comprehending the intrinsic beauty. In discussing about poetry, Du Fu also paid particular attention to the concept of “enlightenment” to stress the superb, concentrated and mind-reality-unified creative mood. Such mental state is mostly equivalent to the state of being inspired. For example, there are many depictions in his poems: Time flies and I sigh for my old age (“Twenty Lines Presented              to Shang Wei the Left Prime Minister”). I drink and get drunk but my poem flows from my writing brush              naturally (“Drinking Alone”). When I overstep the old boundaries, my poems can leap out              (“Thirty Rhymed Lines to Zhang the Number Twelve”). Poetry hinges on heavenly help and my lines rise upon my              spring tours (“Visit to the Shrine of Xiujue”).

2  XING’S TRANSFORMATIONS AFTER THE TANG DYNASTY 

33

I wave my writing brush and my writing is aided by the divine power              (“Eight Mourning Poems”). Your talents will be unmatchable for ages and sublimate as you age              (“For Xue the Third Brother”).

Those lines show that Du Fu, in his personal experience of composition, was aware of the natural spontaneous state of mind that was formulated promptly without notice before a stroke of genius. But the first contact with the object was the crucial psychological condition for surges of enlightenment. Du Fu saw eye to eye with Yuan Jie and others regarding “Bi, Xing, mockery and ridicule,” but was more poised to take the stance of stimulation leading to enlightenment and freedom of restraints, as held in the Six Dynasties. Particularly his “A Poem of Diversion” and “An Octet of Autumn Poems” poured out all the concerns and worries welling up in mind about his misfortune and the country’s adversity. Du Fu made new contributions to the defining of Xing with his experiments and experiences. 2.1.3   Bai Juyi’s Mocking Allegory of Bi and Xing Bai Juyi (772–846) was a noted poet in the mid-Tang Dynasty and a representative of the movement of the New Court Ballads. His poetic career drew on the mid-Tang literary development and he advanced the study of The Odes and Folk and Court Songs, eulogy and satire of the pre-Qin and Western and Eastern Han dynasties, a further step taken in carrying on the politically inclined literary trend since the period of decadent poetry toward the end of the Han dynasty, but a bolder ideological move than that of Chen Ziang and Li Bai. His creative career was closely related to his understanding of poetry and aesthetics. During his tenure as Left Official of Admonition, he frequently submitted memorials expounding his views on the government corruption and reforms. He even wrote mocking poems as seen in “I sing the ballads of the masses’ sickness and would like to have it registered with the emperor” in an attempt to strike a chord with the ruler. However, instead of fulfilling his goal, he infuriated the supreme authority and was demoted to the post of prefect at Jiangzhou. Since then, his early determination became blunted as he took a utilitarian position. According to Bai Juyi, the stance of “Mei and Ci” must be assumed if the purpose was to satirize corrupt officials and advocate political

34  J. YUAN

reforms, as put forward in “Preface” to Mao’s Version. In his “The Ballad Collector,” the lines read “If the emperor desires to go out of his dishonest court and learn about people’s grievances, he should first read satirical ballads.” He believed that ballads were just like folk songs, playing the role of revealing the masses’ sentiments, and the liberal-minded ruler should not ignore their crucial function. Unfortunately, since the end of the Zhou Dynasty, this tradition of observing customs and reading folks’ voices had been thrown away due to the ruler’s stupidity and wool-throwing officials around as the imperial court resounded with voices of flattery. The most important goal to reach for poetry, according to him, was not to sing the praises of someone nor to “chant sentimental lines,” but to resume the endeavors of mockery and regain the poetic property of satire. In “Letter to Yuan Zhen,” Bai Juyi lamented the loss of the “Six Arts” since the Jin and Song dynasties: Since the close of the Zhou and rise of the Qin, the ballad collecting officials had disappeared. The emperor did not count on the collecting and reading popular songs as remedies on governments’ follies nor did ordinary people see poetry as a vehicle for their feelings. As a result, the practice of eulogy was rampant and mistakes were no longer rectified. At this moment the “Six Arts” were fragmented. The Odes evolved into Elegies of Chu and The Lament, and the five-character poetry originated in the production of Su Wu and Li Ling. Su Wu and Li Ling had both led a harsh life and put their aspiration and personal experience on paper. Consequently the lines like “holding you by the hand at night while stepping on stones across the river” only expressed parting sorrows; works like “wandering along the shore of a lake and singing a song” at most articulated pent-up frustrations. Those poems represent nothing more than pains of separation, vexation and depression. However, they were not poles apart from The Book of Songs and still maintained the fundamentals of the “Six Arts.” Therefore the sadness of parting is expressed with “a pair of swans going south but only one of them flying back north,” and a mocking contrast is often seen in depiction of “the fragrant grass” and “ferocious birds” between the gentleman and villain. Despite the unsatisfactory retaining of the “Six Arts”, one third of the rudiments of The Odes were basically kept, indicative of the declining tendency. But since the Jin and Song periods, the signs of the tradition had disappeared altogether. For instance, the major attention was paid to mountains and rivers in the poetry of Marquis Xie Lingyun in spite of his lofty aspirations; Tao Yuanming was superb for his primitive simplicity but still showed the bent for pasture. In comparison, poets like Jiang Yang and Bao Zhao were

2  XING’S TRANSFORMATIONS AFTER THE TANG DYNASTY 

35

even less plausible, and “The Five Lined Ballad of Alas” by Liang Hong was unable to measure up to one percept of the pre-Qin legacy. At this moment the “Six Arts” was on steady decline toward the downfall. As for the time of the Liang and Cheng states the poetry was at best descriptive of winds, snows, flowers and grass. Alas, do you think the three hundred poems from The Book of Songs are devoid of depictions of landscape? It is only a matter of purposed application. “The gale-force winds ice-cold” satirically refers to tyranny; “the blizzard fierce across the land” shows compassion for the people loaded with corvée; “the sepals and petals around the flower in bud” contains an analog of brotherhood; “picking the fungi and picking the fungi” celebrates the woman’s pregnancy with the flowers in front of the cart. All those poems result from urges of wind, snow, flower and grass and symbolically represent the slashing of despotism, sympathy for the suffering under forced labor, the mockery of sibling relationship, and the display of expectant joy. How could one go against the trend? “The sunset glow rolls across the horizon like a colorful brocade curtain; the clear-watered river lies as smooth as silk.” I have no idea about the intended satire and analogy of poems like “The dew-loaded flower falls to the soil; the wind whips leaves to the ground.” Therefore I have to say this kind of poetry is meaningless and beyond the appreciation of nature. Consequently the “Six Arts” are now extinct.

This commentary by Bai Juyi presents a reassessment of the literary evolution since the pre-Qin periods. In light of the critical method, his point of view is similar to the Confucian poetic canon. Among his other poems, Bai Juyi also took as the established orthodoxy of poetry the Confucian theory of “the odes, folk and court songs, Bi and Xing.” He said, in “Reading the Old Music Bureau Poems by Zhang Ji,” “How are poems composed? The ‘Six Arts’ are to be applied. Essentially they are odes, folk and court songs, Bi and Xing, but no superfluous words are chosen.” He believed that the four types of composition represent the fundamentals of the “Six Arts” and should be the rubric of poetry for all ages. For him, those four types of creation had been gradually discarded since the Qin Dynasty, leaving only some lingering signs in The Lament and some five-character poems like those written by Su Wu and Li Ling toward the end of the Han Dynasty, as he points out, “There is no absolute absence of the ‘Six Arts’ in their production and the styles of odes are still occasionally seen in the two poets’ execution of Bi and Xing.” However, the technique of the “Six Arts” had been completely forgotten since the Jin and Song dynasties, poets were obsessed

36  J. YUAN

with scenery narration and even noted poets like Tao Yuanming were scarcely able to grasp the gist of Bi and Xing. Bai Juyi frowned upon the practice of Xing of the poets in the Six Dynasties and saw it as opposed to the crux of Xing embodied in the “the odes, folk and court songs, Bi and Xing,” arguing that the had been utilizing the skill purely for the emotional release and sketching of winds, flowers, snows and the moon, far removed from the political intent. Bi and Xing were important due to their emphasis on Mei and Ci. Without the satirical message, the production was worthless for all its metrical exquisiteness. Consequently, poems structured this way on Bi and Xing once again relapsed into the Confucian political service and resumed its rhetorical faculty of political propaganda. Among the numerous poets during the two hundred years of the Tang periods, Bai Juyi only thought highly of Chen Ziang for his “The Thirty-Eight Five-character Poems” and Bao Fang for his “My Thoughts.” For Li Bai and Du Fu, he also showed mild disapproval, in that they failed to allow “Mei, Ci, Bi and Xing” to have full play. He mentioned in particular, “Li Bai is gifted at poetry and second to none. But the influence by the odes, folk and court songs, Bi and Xing is scarcely seen in his production.” To achieve this goal of poetry, he strived to blaze a trail, “I have widely read in poetry and written my own about my feelings and thoughts. Some of my poems were composed in terms of eulogy, satire, stimulation and analogy. I selected 150 poems about the affairs occurring in the reigns of Wude and Yuanhe of the Tang Dynasty and entitled them New Music Bureau Poems. I call them the mocking and metaphorical poems.” These narratives by Bai Juyi are very important in the history of ancient Chinese poetry. They mark the aesthetic evolution of Xing since the end of the Han and beginning of the Wei and Jin, with a transition from a politically focused attention to an independent art and a return to the political inclination of Mei and Ci in the subsequent years. 2.1.4   Zhu Xi’s New Interpretation of Xing Zhu Xi was a well-known metaphysical monist of the Southern Song Dynasty and also a highly versed literary theorist. Through his Studies of The Book of Songs and Commentaries on The Elegies of Chu, he made comprehensive contributions to the conventional idea of Xing. Generally, he approached the features of Xing from a technical angle. He said, “An

2  XING’S TRANSFORMATIONS AFTER THE TANG DYNASTY 

37

analog is set up between two objects with its metaphor intended beyond. But a provoked message in terms of Xing is created upon an objective trigger and often presented in the following line. Therefore, analogy is graphic but superficial, while the targeted significance is broad and thought-provoking” (Zhu Jian’s The Collected Commentary on The Book of Songs). For him, the exploiting of Xing’s potential was of paramount importance as he also described, “Analogy is vivid but being prompted is far-reaching” (Zhu Jian’s The Collected Commentary on The Book of Songs). This idea was further noted: “The word spur in the line is not very important. But it is provoking to consciousness and awareness. The poet gets the prompt and responds with a good verse” (Zhu Jian’s The Collected Commentary on The Book of Songs). According to Zhu Xi, the role of Xing was mainly played for arousing conscious attention and provoking thoughts so the so-called Xing was the assertion of gradual influence on the poet’s thinking. Zhu Xi’s understanding confidently freed himself from the confining limit of “Preface” to Mao’s Version and opposed the inclusion of many ballads from The Book of Songs into the category of Mei and Ci. In The Critique of Preface to Mao’s Version of “The Book of Songs,” he remarked, “In general, the ancients wrote poems as poets of today, reflecting and sighing on the surroundings to release feelings. How could they be bent on ridicule? If the reader follows the instructions of the Mao authors’ ‘Preface,’ reads and understands each of the poems as a satirical work, the author’s original meaning is screwed up…This type of reading the poems ruins the goodness of the poems, a major fault of Mao’s Version of “The Book of Songs.” “Preface” to Mao’s Version interpreted The Book of Songs as a production based on Mei, Ci, Bi and Xing, clearly because there arose a desire to curb the increasingly expanding imperial power with the Confucian classics and interactions between Heaven and man, caused by the anxiety about this unrestrained feudal imperialism at the peak of the Han Dynasty, so as to preserve its current state under the umbrella of the harmony of Heaven and man and doctrine of the mean. Actually, this mutual restraining system of politics and culture is representative of ancient Chinese society. In addition, the acceptance of Mei, Ci, Bi and Xing showed the Han ruling classes’ position with a certain kind of tolerance and their controlled attitude, at this moment of history, toward the critical spirit represented in the orthodox classic The Book of Songs. The vigor of style of Mei, Ci, Bi and Xing continued as Bai Juyi carried it on in the Tang time. However, in the Song Dynasty when

38  J. YUAN

censorship was tightened up as many men of letters were jailed due to unaccepted expression and the critical posits of neo-Confucianism were on the wane, literary writers were impacted by “concentrating on temperament cultivation and paying attention to nothing else”. As a result they were far behind their counterparts of the Two Han and Tang dynasties in laying bare corruption and adversity. In this situation, Zhu Xi consciously removed the narratives of grievance and satire, presented in The Book of Song, and the critical remarks on Mei and Ci, made in “Preface” to Mao’s Version, and highlighted The Book of Songs as a textbook on disposition nurturing. Zhu Xi also overhauled the definition of Xing made in “Preface” to Mao’s Version. He discarded the earlier work’s way of only treating the Xing poems with a marking sign in neglect of those Fu- and Bi-featured poems. He also carefully designated each stanza of poem with the marks of Fu, Bi, or Xing instead of only putting a label of Xing on top of it. In classifying The Book of Songs, he selected 1141 sections, including 726 categorized as Fu, 110 as Bi and 274 as Xing. It is worth noting that he made deletions and corrections on 116 Xing-featured poems, and made nineteen Fu annotations, twenty-eight Bi annotations, and three both. Such classification is confusing with the marks of Bi to Xing, Xing to Bi, Fu to Xing, etc. Definitely what Zhu Xi did is structurally motivated. With a guideline for his Studies of The Book of Songs in mind, he would attenuate or even nullify the sentiments of fury and frustration of this work. At the same time, he turned a blind eye to Confucius’ idea of “poetry of grievance” in an attempt to let the world read it as a textbook about the nurturing of disposition, preaching heavenly principles and making evil desires perish. Generally, he had this idea in mind in reassessing the value of Bi and Xing. He undertook to reduce the number of Xing-featured poems and increase that of Bi-featured ones because the latter were better fit with teaching effects of poetry and the former more liable to different interpretations, and more likely to stand out for the poetic message, to be the pick of his metaphysical teaching materials. On the four lines of the first stanza of The Odes of Zhou and the South: Fish Hawks, Zhou Xi put forward, The function of Xing is to introduce a message by a prompting image. Duke Wenwang of Zhou was of sagely virtue. He later took the beautiful virgin Si as his concubine. One court man saw her arrive and admired her quiet, graceful bearing so he composed a poem, comparing her to a fish

2  XING’S TRANSFORMATIONS AFTER THE TANG DYNASTY 

39

hawk and imaging a duet of crying with her on a sand ridge of a river. But this is a lovely lady and how could she marry one below a lord?

Take another look at his first commentary on Bi on the first stanza of The Odes of Zhou and the South: The Katydid: The role of Bi is to compare something with something else. Imperial concubines are not jealous of each other so the offspring is numerous. They live in groups with the katydid and a horde of descendants are born, as a symbol of virtue and fortune. Later this becomes a model of Bi in poetry.

Here, we can see from these two quotations on Bi and Xing from Studies of The Book of Songs that Zhu Xi studied Xing and Bi in the perspective of political intention and took a more utilitarian point of view than in “Preface” to Mao’s Version. To him, Bi and Xing differed only in the course of presentation, the former hooking the image to the message by brutal force and the latter leading to a message by way of a preamble. In the “Preface” to Studies of The Book of Songs, he elaborated on the personality nurturing through poetry reading, “Its lines imply ethical guidelines, the task of its exegesis is imperceptibly influential, its mockery and praise are meant for promoting righteousness, and its cultural immersion is experienced. Disposition is gradually forged, and the refining of behavior is crucial. Therefore cultivating one’s character, keeping a house and reigning with the law of Heaven are fulfilled without other resources.” Zhu Xi laid great emphasis on learning from The Book of Songs by closely reading its lines, comprehending its narratives, understanding texts of satire and tribute, internalizing depictions of the heart and mind, and incorporating language analysis into the forging of the inner world so as to develop the reader’s worthy character and gain abilities to succeed in career, family life and leading the country. Zhu Xi’s new interpretation of Bi and Xing, which introduces the metaphysical postulate of temperament bettering, is valuable. 2.1.5   The Concept of Xing’s Sparks of Interest in Canglang’s Criticism of Poetry Yan Yu (dates of birth and death unknown), styled Yiqing and also known for his sobriquet Canglang Hermit, lived in solitude and sought no officialdom at the end of the Song Dynasty. His Canglang’s Criticism of Poetry occupied a unique place in the history of ancient Chinese

40  J. YUAN

aesthetics with independent contributions to the basic characteristics of poetry in terms of analyzing realizations in the Eastern cultural background, psychological appreciation and particular poetic expression. It is another far-reaching work following The Classic of Music, The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons and Twenty-four Types of Poetry. This work of his represents his chronological study of poetry. In a time crippled with sinister officials in power and muddle-headed rulers in reign toward the end of the Southern Song Dynasty, Yan Yu lived in indignation and committed his work to studies of literature and arts in order to bring the Tang’s poetry up to prosperity and call attention to the lost national character. Primarily, Canglang’s Criticism of Poetry summarized the developments of the five- and seven-character poetries at the finish of the Tang Dynasty, redefined the rubric, recalls its successful examples in its heyday in the mid-Tang time, and rectified malpractices of the late Song period. In this work, he remarked on Poetry Analysis: A talented poet does not solely rely on wide reading; a well composed poem rests on the poet’s unique artistic presentation rather than the preaching of reason; it is untrue to be successful by reading extensively and learning deductive logic. It is an ideal way to keep off the course of reasoning and never leave loopholes behind, instead of bringing home the fish and forgetting the fishing tackle. A poem is expressive of emotion. Noted mid-Tang poets had all been motivated by their interest and alerted to vague presentation like the horned antelope hanging on the tree with no trace visible. The superb diction is cleaver, nimble and easy to be deciphered, like an echo in the void, a complexion, the moon reflected in water, and a mirror image. The lines come to an end and their meaning are lingering. But today poets veer away from the traditional patterns so they concentrate on word choices, replace poems with writings of showcasing knowledge and commentary. Despite their labor this is not the craftsmanship of antiquity, probably due to an absence of singing a song and implying a rich message. In particular their production mostly is fraught with assertions of reason and shows no sign of mood with words chosen from classical sources and lines rhymed on correct roots. Such works are obtuse even if read a couple of times.

Yan Yu believed that poets should have gifts and interest different from those of learning and be good at incorporating “the gifts” and “reasoning” in the artistic creation of feeling and being stimulated, as exemplified in those remarkable poems, “Poems on sparks of interest by

2  XING’S TRANSFORMATIONS AFTER THE TANG DYNASTY 

41

poets of the golden age of Tang.” His whiplash hit home at the “assertions of reason and no sign of mood” characterized by the Jiangxi school of poetry. Yan Yu did not view knowledge and reasoning power as useless, but he thought that they must be integrated and absorbed into one’s passion instead of subjecting one’s main concerns to acquired aptitude. In Canglang’s Criticism of Poetry: Poetry Notes, he asserts, “Poetry is characterized by rhetoric, reasoning and interest. The poets of the Southern Dynasty were strong in rhetoric but weak in reasoning; my contemporaries are good at reasoning but weak at interest; those Tang composers championed interest that includes reasoning; in the poetry of the Han and Wei all these traits were blended into a coherent whole.” In a comparative perspective, Yan Yu assessed those three time periods in terms of their representative place of “rhetoric, reasoning and interest.” Poets from the Southern Dynasty were interested in rhetoric expression in neglect of “reasoning” or the targeted message, which appeared formalistic; their followers from the Song took a reverse turn by focusing on “reasoning” at the expense of “interest,” leaving a dull taste in the reader’s mouth; the outstanding production came from the poetry of the Tang period that depicted individual “interests” and radiated “reasoning” at the same time, an accomplishment that caught both natural tendency and thematic significance. In addition, Yan Yu, in Canglang’s Criticism of Poetry: Poetry Analysis, called for learning from the style of the prime Tang poetry. To him, the first step to take was undoubtedly to emulate the classics in learning to compose poems. If this first step failed to focus on the best sample, it easily slid to an incorrect path of work and would be hard to come back onto the right track. Therefore, he emphasized in Canglang’s Criticism of Poetry: Poetry Analysis: “Poetry beginners should be cautious in choosing the correct path and aim at learning from the best, imitating the poetry of the Han, Wei and best Tang times and ignoring works of the reign periods of Kaiyuan and Tianbao. If one chooses to scale down the requirement, his potential will be barred from full exploitation thanks to a mediocre life goal. A production can be ameliorated to perfection. But an error the breath of a single hair can lead one a thousand miles astray.” What he stressed was that getting started with a correct subject to learn about poetry was crucial, for imperfections can be removed through efforts. But the embarkation on an improperly chosen poetry career, the more one works, the further away one finds himself from the destination.

42  J. YUAN

Yan Yu highly acclaimed the poetry of the Han, Wei and thriving Tang times and shrugged off the creation after the Kuaiyuan and Tianbao periods at the reign of the Tang’s Emperor Xuanzong. In Canglang’s Criticism of Poetry: Poetry Notes, he frequently annotated the poetry between the prime and mid of the Tang Dynasty in comparison, “Li Bai and Du Fu penned powerful poems like the roc flying over the ocean and the elephant trekking through the river. But a look at Meng Jiao and Jia Dao only indicates the negligible image of the insects crying in the grass”; “The poems of Gao Shi and Cen Can sound cold sober and fill one with aspiration; those of Meng Jiao are rather tragic, making one downcast.” His appreciation of Gao Shi and Cen Can and disapproval of Meng Jiao and others resulted from a wistful longing for the voices of the time and resentment at current affairs in lieu of personal inclination. He overturned the recognition of the insipid beauty embraced by many Song poets. His advocacy of the vigor of the flourishing Tang achievement was best manifested in works Li Bai, Du Fu, Gao Shi and Cen Can for their solemn, stirring, calm and refreshing styles. The concept of Xing’s sparks of interest posited by Yan Yu made contributions to the ancient Chinese poetic study of Xing. In the Han Dynasty, the idea of Xing was addressed in light of analogy and stimulation with emphasis on Mei, Ci, Bi and Xing; scholars of the Six Dynasties were interested in the role of Xing for seeing and reflecting; the understanding of Xing by those Tang followers focused on seeing and releasing rushes of emotion; in comparison, Yan Yu believed that the prime Tang’s “concentration on sparks of interest” should be esteemed. It not only mirrored the spirit of the Tang poets’ contribution but also brought out his ideal aesthetic goal. In this regard, his postulation of the concept of “sparks of interest” was highly illuminating for uncovering the ills of the time.

2.2  The Development of Xing in the Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties During the Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties, a variety of schools of thought arose and developed in the study of Xing and made a few influential contributions, of which the ideas of “style,” “temperament” and “romantic appeal” are typical, enriching and broadening its definition based on their own systems of understanding of Bi and Xing, a key traditional Chinese interpretation of the object–response relationship. In particular, shaken and urged by earth-shattering social and cultural changes,

2  XING’S TRANSFORMATIONS AFTER THE TANG DYNASTY 

43

a cohort of aspirant, deeply state-concerned people such as Chen Zilong and Wang Fuzhi pitched in with an all-around assessment of the literary conventions and advanced far-reaching views, which, in contrast to the concerns of sage book reading and current affairs-numbed literati, were humanitarian in depth and width as jewels of the ancient Chinese verselet. 2.2.1   The School of Temperament on Xing The representative figure of the school of temperament is Yuan Hongdao from the sect of Gong’an in the Ming Dynasty, who concentrated on the “assertion of temperament and freedom of conventions” at the core. It grew out of the Ming’s literary liberation movement under the influence of Xu Wei and Li Zhi. The school of temperament perceived the essence of Xing in terms of the assertion of personal arrogance and wrath that immensely broadened Xing’s vigor of living. Xu Wei (1521–1593), styled Wenchang, was a leading figure in the literary liberation movement toward the end of the Ming Dynasty. He was a versatile artist in poetry, painting and music and a prolific writer. Thanks to his surly unworldly character, he led a rough life. As a result, his production of treatises, plays and painting became a way to give vent to frustration. Taking a point of view on the individual character, he advocated a creative position as he remarked in his On the Mean: The Four Ways: Words were originally used but related to a message in terms of Xing. Therefore words were chosen to describe persons through the process of Xing. Today words are also picked to depict personality. The effect of Xing is primary and the rhetoric is secondary. To compose a piece with the initiation of Xing and subsequent composition, the ancient rhetoric style is dense, causing hard interpretation and thereby ruining the original style. A departure from the ancient style brings out popular acceptance. The ancient convention is known for its obtuse expression which leads to hard comprehension; hard comprehension incurs further difficulty in reading and leads to the total loss of interest. This is the course of natural evolution and cannot be willfully controlled, for the reason is that whether the poet sticks to the application of Xing to the proper condition of the time. Therefore in ancient times the poem “A Broad Road” was popular, but today it is not considered as melodious. The popular ancient ballad “Tomb” is completely discarded by today’s singers except for its spoken parts. The reason is that time has changed and poets and society have to suit the taste of today instead of working against the tide.

44  J. YUAN

Xu Wei thought that the idea of Xing had grown out of the historical development. In ancient times, poems like “A Broad Road” and “Tomb” were composed on the use of Xing and struck the right chord in the heart of readers. But they seldom appeal to today’s readers. Now only the spoken parts from those songs have remained fascinating to today’s listeners. Xu Wei took a historical point of view and provided a unique evaluation of literature and reforms, different from those of the “Former Seven and Later Seven Masters.” He focused on the part of Xing, from the four roles of poetry of “stimulating, observing, socialization and complaining,” as the benchmark of evaluating any pieces of the time. The new effect of Xing was achieved by way of raising the awareness of the living rather than lethargic idol to be worshipped. What is more important is that his perception of the four roles of poetry stands out from the conventions as he approached them from the angle of true feelings. In early times, critics generally saw the poetry for “stimulating, observing, socialization and complaining” with respect to the purpose of cultivating personal qualities of “gentility and sincerity.” In contrast, Xu Wei re-interpreted the idea of Xing on the basis of the Confucian definition of “stimulating, observing, socialization and complaining” in a fresh fashion and saw it as an explosion of the individual life and personality. In “Letter to Xu Beikou,” he noted: If you pick up one work and read it and find yourself shivering as though with the cold water splashed on the back, that work is none other than one of “stimulating, observing, socialization and complaining.” If otherwise, it should not be the pick.

What Xu Wei meant here is that the poetry’s four roles boil down to indignation and vehemence as opposed to “graceful harmony.” He affirmed that this type of emotion was appealing and also experimented with the charm of this fervid clash. Toward the end of the Ming, the literary trend of romanticism replacing graceful harmony with the charm of fervid clash signaled a major transition in the study of ancient Chinese aesthetics. Xu Wei, with his works and ideas, spearheaded a campaign of reform in Chinese history of literary criticism. In the Wanli Reign of the Ming Dynasty, the noted thinker and literary writer Li Zhi (1527–1602) helped to push forward the drive of ideological liberation, a representative of the industrial and commercial

2  XING’S TRANSFORMATIONS AFTER THE TANG DYNASTY 

45

interest at the end of the feudal society. His thought centers around one point, that is, the delineating of individuality, verisimilitude and longing for freedom. Li Zhi challenged the idea of “poems beginning with emotional expression and ending with the spreading of the rites” held in Preface to “Mao’s Version”: Admittedly songs and poems express feelings of pleasure. But how could they appear natural instead of being affected and stagy? Thus the natural emotion is initially presented but comes to a close with the sign of teaching on the rites. Without the source of innate feeling, nothing admirable can be achieved with touches of the rites. A feigned stroke ruins the work, so beauty comes with natural presentation. In addition, without true affection and desire, there should be no so-called course of natural expression. Therefore an extrovert speaks in a ringing tone; a leisurely mannered man has slow and steady speech; a large minded one expresses extensively; a man of great ambition appears heroic; the reticent and depressed are generally impressive. The individual character guides the tone of presentation, and the natural release of emotion is the key. Without emotion and desire, what else can one fulfill his goal of creation?

Li Zhi took a multi-approached point of view and showed that the beauty of poetry lied in the true revelation of feelings, no matter whether the person was extrovert, leisurely mannered, large minded and greatly ambitioned, etc., whereas those works were ugly with pretenses on the character. Literary production based on the genuine display of individuality transcends utilitarian motives with flawless unaffected workmanship. Li Zhi carried on with Confucius’ view of “poetry for grievance” and Sima Qian’s view of “writing books in frustration,” arguing for good poems being made in fury. Very often, at the time of injustice and adversity, one can produce unforgettable and moving works. Han Yu once said, “It is easier to compose a work of harshness than one of happiness.” Li Zhi claimed: Most gifted authors generally do not intend to compose a work. But when having something unusual in mind they would like to express it in paper; when feeling something caught in the throat they must spit it out; when words come to the tongue they cannot find a proper occasion. The pent-up emotion is on the rise until to the verge of breaking out. Once one runs into an occurrence that touches a chord, he drinks a goblet of

46  J. YUAN wine to unload his frustration and completes a worthy piece to be read in ages to come. (Random Thoughts)

He contended for the enchantment of raging response and blowing unruliness, in that good works should be constructive to social reforms and promoting humanitarianism, but they must be completed on the basis of the authors’ personal character and temperament rather than on stereotypes. He remarked in A Book to Hide: Great Confucian Historian Sima Qian: In terms of a so-called writer, he was stimulated on a sight to express a long cherished desire, or a feeling to be got across in a deluge of words.

He believed that Sima Qian’s Records of the Historian was a work of prolonged aspiration and stimulation, which was beneficial to society and human beings. He also said in another work that “Well written works come as a result of the effective medicines that good doctors prescribe and have been produced in great numbers” (“A Commentary on the Two Anecdotes of the Duke of Wei Cao Cao”). His age-featured contributions are unique in the traditional Chinese literary criticism. 2.2.2   Wang Fuzhi’s Study of Xing Wang Fuzhi was an important figure in the study of poetry at the turn from the Ming to the Qing Dynasty. Wang Fuzhi (1619–1692), with the pseudonym Jiang Zhai, lived at the end of the Ming and beginning of the Qing Dynasty. He witnessed the Ming’s decay and downfall and also participated in the opposition to the Qing Dynasty. After the fall of the Ming, he went to Chuanshan in the northwest of Hengyang in Hunan and led a recluse life writing books. Disapproving of the literary positions of both the liberation movement and the “Former Seven Masters and Later Seven Masters” of the Ming period, he reflected on and reassessed the historical trends of criticism in hopes of restoring the tradition of teaching through poetry. In Desultory Remarks on Poetry from Ginger Studio, he observed: The quotation of “Poetry can be used for stimulation, observation, socialization and complaining,” which is comprehensive and against which the productions of the Han, Wei, Tang and Song dynasties are benchmarked

2  XING’S TRANSFORMATIONS AFTER THE TANG DYNASTY 

47

on their value and deficiency. The Book of Songs should be read this way as well. “Can be used” is meant for blending them. So stimulation can be blended with observation so as to reinforce the force of stimulating; observation can be blended with stimulation so as to strengthen the accuracy; socializing can be blended with complaining so as to make an effective grumble; complaining can be blended with socialization so as to build up a better social network. The piece may start without the four molds of expression but definitely get involved with them in the making; an adept play of them never smothers a blaze of emotion. The author may choose one of them to fit his goal, while the reader can relate the poem to his or her own experience in understanding.

Wang Fuzhi put forward a new interpretation of Confucius’ definition of the four roles of poetry and stressed their inner relations with each other. He first made a point that they can be accepted as part of the reader’s reading experience that featured a distinct involvement of subjectivity by saying, “Life experience can be extensive and can vary from person to person, so the value of poetry reading is appreciated.” In reading and enjoying a poem, the reader may find it reminiscent of the past and this reading experience is realized on the basis of Xing. On the one hand, the idea of Xing is an emotional activity for artistic impact while “observation, socialization, and complaining” are grounded in the appreciation of Xing. On the other, the activity of comprehension is incorporated into one’s perception, education and nurture. Therefore, the four activities are blended and beneficial to each other. An interaction between stimulation and observation must intensify the force of stimulation, because the provoked message is no longer a narrative of landscape and sentiment but a wealth of individual and social wisdom gleaned through years. Similarly, an interaction between observation and stimulation must bring about a keen sense of understanding, because such understanding can only be uplifted to a higher level by way of strong emotional involvement. Wang Fuzhi made an illuminating note on poetic creation in Yuan Ji’s Poems from My Heart: In the firmament, all true feelings are tangible, full of potential for stimulating, observing, socializing and complaining and derivative of poetry. But poetry often relates to sight, events, the past, future and bitter memories unable to utter. Poetry shadows life and scenery, depicting history and society and displaying the correct way of poetic creation. (A Commentary on Selection Ancient Poems, vol. 4)

48  J. YUAN

To Wang Fuzhi, the value of Ruan Ji’s Poems from My Heart lies in the poet’s drawing on his own experiences in generalizing social and human reality and tragedies of the time and providing the reader with opportunities to savor “poetry for stimulation, observation, socialization and complaining” with enduring memory. He believed that this was “the correct way of poetic creation,” that is, the model of poetry. He further pointed out: A poet capable of composing on stimulation is talented. Being able to be spurred indicates one’s vigor and ambition. If one is burdened with mundane, humdrum existence, ignorant of the current affairs, surrounded by his wife and offspring and worrying about food and income, he shrivels from a man of aspiration. He does not know the height of the sky when looking up and does not know the depth of the earth when looking down. He can feel but remains in day dream; he can see but is in fact blind to the reality; he toils with his four limbs but cannot think with the mind or feel with the heart. That is why he is not poised to respond to prompts. Great poets let the reader read their poems to cleanse his heart of the filth, shake off apathy, train him as a noted figure and expect him to be a sage in the future. This is the way of rescuing people at the time of chaos. (On Philosophy)

Here, Wang Fuzhi combined the four poetry roles with the moral cultivation, making a fresh contribution to Confucius’ idea of “poetry for stimulation, observation, socialization and complaining.” He believed that one’s ability to respond to external prompted displays of his/her desire for a fulfilled life and vigor. If a man is narrow- minded, with lack of ambition and is yoked with family chores, he is not in a position to be enticed and productive. Similarly, he has become addicted to such a mind-set, thanks to a long absence of poetry reading. As years go on, he would become more and more dumb-headed and worthless. Therefore, sages compose and teach poetry to bestir the masses and free them from the bondage of family routines and lethargy. To him, this was the important task that sages should shoulder at times of chaotic and shattered society. In his Annotations on Zhang Zai’s Enlightenment: Music Instruments, he also pointed out, “Great achievement comes from the unity of poetry and music. Scholars usually learn both poetry and music so that inspirations can be gradually obtained. If they keep glorious deeds of the early emperors in mind as sources of inspiration, they can think and compose with facilities on a variety of topics and undoubtedly succeed.” Obviously, Wang Fuzhi approached the four major roles

2  XING’S TRANSFORMATIONS AFTER THE TANG DYNASTY 

49

of poetry in relating to social responsibilities in a given time. He grieved for declining morals and fallen human nature, and hoped to enlighten the society with learning poetry. This represented his deep anxiety about the tumble of culture. 2.2.3   Wang Shizhen’s Concept of “Stimulation Leading to Supernatural Charm” Wang Shizhen (1634–1711), a famous poet and critic at the advent of the Qing Dynasty, wrote a few works such as Comments on the Collection of Poems from Daijingtang Study and compiled annotated collections of ancient poems such as Selected Ancient Poems, Ten Thousand Fourlined Poems of the Tang, and A Collection of Three-Flavored Poems of the Tang. He presented the idea of “supernatural charm.” A term used in painting criticism, “supernatural charm” first appeared in A Collection of Ancient Paintings by Xie He of the Southern Qi Dynasty and On the Six Painting Skills by Zhang Yanyuan. It is mainly about the supernatural appeal of one’s character and disposition as opposed to one’s appearance. Yan Yu, in Canglang’s Criticism of Poetry, asserted, “The sublimity of the poem lied in its effect called supernatural enchantment.” In the Ming dynasty, Hu Yinglin and others also banked on this idea in criticizing their dismissed poems, generally focusing on the views of “stimulation on sparks of excitement and supernatural enlightenment.” But Wang Shizhen’s particular emphasis on “supernatural charm” as the highest ideal state of poetry is based on a valid reason. He remarked: Of the ancient masters’ commentaries on poems one of them is Twentyfour Styles of Poetry. I like the most the eight character statement “In no words are all startled with its elegance.” It also remarks, “A murmuring stream and a delighting spring.” These two phrases describe a supreme poetic state and are rhymed as Dai Rongzhou’s eight characters “The fertile land of Lantian in balmy days and precious jades produced in bounty.” (Xiangzu’s Jottings, vol. 8)

Wang Shizhen combined “supernatural charm” with the critical points made by Sikong Tu of the late Tang and Yan Yu of the Southern Song. This idea represents the school of Taoism and Dhyana in the ancient Chinese poetry study, led by its major figures such as Wang Wei, Pei Di and Meng Haoran.

50  J. YUAN

Based on the concept of “supernatural charm” as a model of creation, his theorem of “stimulation” became the bedrock of his literary criticism. First he assumed that the attitude of poetic creation is based on the fusion of the idea of “stimulation,” derivative of the Six Dynasties with that of “supernatural charm,” as he observed in Yuyang on Poetry, vol. 3: Xiao Zixian says, “I ascended a height to enjoy a distant view; I arrived at a river shore to see the sunset, swans in flight at the rosy dawn and flowers in bloom and then leaves falling. My thoughts were contained for long but when a chance arrived I was beside myself with desire to express. Let things take their own course and creation should not be human-made.” Wang Shiyang commented on Meng Haoran’s poem: “A production is made only by stimulation and response.” In my whole life, I have never been more convinced by this idea. Therefore, a poem should not be artificial, nor should rhymed lines be based on a guideline.

Wang Shizhen praised Xiao Zixian and Wang Shiyuang, he felt proud of himself and claimed that he enjoyed unpretentiously penned poems. In writing, he frequently cited those poems with “stimulation leading to supernatural charm,” but turned a blind eye to works of other schools of thought. In his compiled work, A Collection of Three-flavored Poems of the Tang, he even dumped Li Bai and Du Fu, with Bai Juyi further cold-shouldered. That favor is undoubtedly one-sided. In Poetry Talks at the Daijing Meditation Room: Annotations on Xing, vol. 3, Wang Shizhen stated with an accolade, “The ancients composed extraordinary poems solely on provoked meditation, dissimilar to poets of later generations with their overdone expression, and set up good models like the distance-measuring drums.” In addition, in Gufuyuting Commentaries, vol. 3, he eulogized the lines from Wang Wei’s poem “A Farewell to Li Shijun Going Off to Zizhou,” “Innumerable valleys are carpeted with sky reaching trees, and a thousand mountains echo with chirps of cuckoos. A nightly rain falls on leaves of trees as mountain streams gurgle” as “a masterpiece of stimulation coupled with supernatural forces, a stroke of genius with no trace of hatchet and chisel.” Those critical notes indicate two crucial emphases of Wang Shizhen’s “supernatural enchantment” in that, first, the poet assumed the attitude of “stimulation leading to supernatural charm” because he released his long-thought-out ideas on an accident spur. That approach stressing

2  XING’S TRANSFORMATIONS AFTER THE TANG DYNASTY 

51

inspirations frequently sprang up in the midst of poetic composition that, and with no external reliance, created an unsurpassed beauty of expression; second, this type of poetry on “stimulation leading to supernatural charm” cannot be completed by prioritizing diction over content, like playing the lute with the pegs glued or nicking the boat to seek the sword. Frankly speaking, his views are quite reasonable of the profundity of poetry. But they are in one way or another lopsided for taking a part for the whole. It is a good way to jot down poetic lines with “stimulation leading to supernatural charm.” But no one can deny that “meditating on troubled thoughts” also cradles artistic gems. In Suiyuan Poetry, Yuan Mei, a Qing poet, pointed out, “Neither of those two views can be accepted at the expense of the other. Writing can be done either by an angel of nature or by strokes of craftsmanship and is not a zero-sum game.” Meanwhile “stimulation leading to supernatural charm” cannot be separated from “meditating on troubled thoughts.” Such unity can be seen in Du Fu’s poetry featuring pondering in deep thought and being spurred for personality appeal. The brilliance of ancient Chinese poetry basically comes from “poetry for grievance” rather than solely from the reality detachedness and omnipotent natural forces held by Wang Shizhen. Furthermore, Wang Shizhen did not think that the effects of “stimulation leading to supernatural charm” could be automatically acquired. Their attainment is rooted in the poet’s learning. He once said, “In terms of poetry composition the basis and spur are two totally separate facades of one identity. The mirror image, the water image of the moon, the color of the identity, and the antelope hung upside down with its horn on the tree cannot be traced with their sources. They fall into the category of stimulated impact. Good poetry is based on the poet’s learning, The Odes and Folk and Court Songs as the sources, combined with The Lament, the Court Ballads of the Han and Wei to form the mainstream, in addition to the knowledge of the nine classics, three histories and great thinkers. So these sources of learning provide the grounding of poetic creation, while provoked messages are attained on momentary impulses. They are in unison, adorned with the vigor of style, superb artistry, and elegant diction in an effort to get across a unique significance with touches of reality and resplendent wording” (Comments on the Collection of Poems from Daijingtang Study: The Crux of Poetry, vol. 3). Wang Shizhen stressed the crucial role of relying on “stimulation leading

52  J. YUAN

to supernatural charm” and establishing the basis of learning through reading The Book of Songs, Elegies of Chu, and poems of the Han and Wei as well. Versed in the classics, holding high ideals and goals and making painstaking efforts on the style and rhetoric, one can be a trailblazer. This idea of his is very insightful.

CHAPTER 3

A Study of the Structure of Xing

Abstract  Xing, as one of the major Chinese aesthetic concepts, best represents the characteristics of Chinese culture. It primarily integrates the perspective mold of the Heaven–man unity and reflects on observed objects, embodied in Chinese culture, with the process of literary creation. It evolves from the earliest metaphorical attempts on Bi and Xing to the sophisticated content-rich expression characteristic of stimulation and implied meaning of the later years. The idea of Xing is meaningful in depth and width as an important component of the Chinese aesthetics and literature and arts. Its thought-dimension focuses on the multi-fold content it gets across to the reader who can absorb on the basis of the individual interpretation. In general, the two major ones are in the following. Keywords  Broad-minded implication for lament

· Metonymy · Ci poems · Xing

Xing, as one of the major Chinese aesthetic concepts, best represents the characteristics of Chinese culture. It primarily integrates the perspective mold of the Heaven–man unity and reflects on observed objects, embodied in Chinese culture, with the process of literary creation. Catching the quintessence of Chinese literature and arts, Xing demonstrates the psychological activity of seeing and reacting and using the scene for expressing © Foreign Language Teaching and Research Publishing Co., Ltd. 2019 J. Yuan, Redefining Chinese Literature and Art, Key Concepts in Chinese Thought and Culture, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-3555-6_3

53

54  J. YUAN

emotions and a structure of the history–logic agreement. It evolves from the earliest metaphorical attempts on Bi and Xing to the sophisticated content-rich expression characteristic of stimulation and implied meaning of the later years. First, in the perspective of creation, Xing focuses on reaction to sights; second, in terms of the poet himself/herself, Xing emphasizes the transition from scenery to thought; third, from the subject–object angle, Xing embraces an ideal artistic state of using implication and undertone for enduring effect. They are the three fundamental components of literary creation in the study of Chinese aesthetics and radiate the rays of Chinese culture in the production of aesthetics.

3.1  A Comparative Review of the Terms of Bi and Xing The earliest application of Xing focused on its metonymical usage. The Eastern Han Confucian scholar Zheng Xuan remarks in Annotations on the Rites of Zhou, Fu is used in narration, giving straightforward accounts of the good and evil of the government. Bi is applied in analogy on the monarch’s faults for fear of giving harsh criticism. Xing is for presenting praiseful accounts about something that is similar to the ruler’s worthy deed to avoid flattery.

He also quoted Zheng Xuan by saying, “Bi seeks similarity between the content and a chosen object; Xing counts on an object as the conveyor of a targeted message.” What he meant is that in terms of Fu, poets gave an unreserved narrative about the ruling class’s meritorious conduct and mistake. For Bi, they chose something similar for the ruler’s misconduct, in order to prevent face-to-face confrontation. As for Xing, writers would not use flattering words in front of the ruling higher ups and instead give the praise tactfully. The Han Confucians considered The Book of Songs as a classic for spreading morals and personality nurturing; they were interested in putting it in use for political purposes so as to realize the kingly way of rule for which they had strived. In comparison, classicists of the Han and Tang dynasties approached and Xing with a view to Mei and Ci. Thanks to the association of Bi and Xing with the subject’s mocking of the monarch in a given historical period, the skill of Xing, originating in The Book of Songs for emotional expression on a given object in sight, is necessarily joined up with more urgent political needs. Preface to Mao’s Version of “The Book of Songs”, written in the Eastern Han Dynasty, points out, “The emperor

3  A STUDY OF THE STRUCTURE OF XING 

55

pushes ahead with the spreading of morals with The Book of Songs, and poets ridicule the emperor through it. But a balanced control should be maintained instead of making it overdone. Therefore, it continues, “A mild mock is presented in poetry; the speaker is not to blame while the listener should take it to heart.” The author of this work is reminding readers that grievance can be vented in poetry but ridicules should be mild and oblique. This relationship truly indicates an obliged attitude assumed by intellectuals who disseminated The Book of Songs in the Han Dynasty of China ruled with the stern cardinal guides and constant virtues. In the Eastern Han Dynasty, Zheng Xuan once remarked, in The Six Arts, “In early times, poems were just ballads sung for ridicule. Later, written forms became available, but expression was still direct and accepted. Choices of words were not questioned as an act of fawning over the ruler, and narratives were not considered as slanders. The monarch and subject behaved and interacted as friends because they treated each other with good faith. As public morals were declining day by day, treachery and hypocrisy became a way of life and a line of conduct between the emperor and subjects had to be drawn. Later, when the rites were imposed, the ruler was esteemed while the subject was submissive. The ruler carried stern deportment and the subject needed to display obedience. As a result, seldom did critical remarks appear any more nor was candid communication possible. So poems were composed to sing the praise of the ruler’s glories and mock his faults.” According to Zheng Xuan, poetry evolved in history from the beginning of ballads to be sung for ridicule. In ancient times, there were no strict codes of conduct between the emperor and the subjects and the subordinates did not offend the superior in face-to-face discussion with frank remonstration. Only later, when the rites were strictly imposed was the sacred cardinal way of conduct of the emperor and subjects rigidly enforced. Consequently, subjects had to resort to roundabout ways of expression. Thus, the poetic technique of Bi and Xing from The Book of Songs came to save the day. In The Book of the Later Han: Biographies of the Academic Scholars, it was noted that Wang Shi, tutor of the magistrate of the Changdu County, once used the three hundred poems from The Book of Songs to give his admonitory remarks. He was thus considered by later critics as the first to adopt “poetry protest.” In the late years of the Eastern Han Dynasty, writers started to take a new approach in the political and cultural change leading to a separation of Bi and Xing in development, with the later switching from the narrow

56  J. YUAN

metonymical use to a broad independent assertion of thought and emotion on the spur of the subject. Primarily speaking, the conflict between Xing’s spontaneous function and its poetic role of spreading truth shows the incompatibility of literary approaches and political perspectives. Many poetry canonists, deeply influenced by Confucianism, are liable to the assumption of Bi and Xing as a representation of reason and ignore their fundamental differences. For example, Chen Qiyuan, a Qing critic of poetry, observes, “Both Bi and Xing are metaphorical but the former is explicit while the latter is implicit; the latter is mild of expression, but the former is direct; the latter is broad in view, while the former is limited. Therefore their applications should be completed with pre-conceived thoughts of the subject matter” (Annotations on Preface to Mao’s Version of “The Book of Songs” and Selected Poems). Obviously, Chen Qiyuan took Bi and Xing as general approaches to logic, particularly for his stress on “pre-conceived thoughts of the subject matter” in neglect of the natural emotional outflow of Xing as its main artistic property. In poetic composition, the use of Xing is more than the rhetoric accessory, but more importantly, it sets out on the object–emotion interaction and settles in a forceful expression of meaning. This is a unique representation of the Chinese artistic way of thinking. When feelings were in check due to social norms and morals, poets lost the freedom of expression via the method of Xing, limited and coupled with the use of Bi for politically guided services. However, as the awareness of humanity as the independent identity gradually dominated and emotion grew liberated, the desire for free expression would unquestionably break the bonds of rites and reason and result in the natural unleashing of thought on sensitive stimulation. In this regard, since the Wei and Jin dynasties, people first treated Xing from a historical point of view about Bi and Xing for their metaphorical usefulness in terms of the “Six Styles,” and experimented with a separation of Xing from Bi. Zhi Yu, a Western Jin literary writer, described in his Literary Styles, “Fu refers to narration; Bi is used in analogy; Xing features reflection.” He emphasized the metaphorical nature of Bi and the induced message from Xing. He did not reject the conventions of the “Six Styles.” In contrast, he repeatedly pointed out, “But the best poems come from those four-character ballads of The Book of Songs. Other derivative styles carried different ways of depicting feelings and thoughts but should not be considered as the mainstream.” However, he noticed the difference of Xing from Bi, thanks to the former’s appreciative inner process,

3  A STUDY OF THE STRUCTURE OF XING 

57

triggered by the subject, and basic property of message conveying for all its similar feature of figurative language. His so-called “stimulated narratives” meant a naturally induced experience from the inner world instead of being imposed from the outside. Narratives without stimulation had nothing to do with the role of Xing, given their statements of aspirations and norms. This insight of Zhi Yu, gained from the social and ideological trends of the “emotion driving behavior” and jumping to prompts, clearly threw a new light on the study of Xing in the Wei, Jin and Southern and Northern dynasties. At that moment, different approaches to the meaning of Xing shared a common ground on its affiliation with the view of responding to the external object. Liu Xie argued, in The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons: Bi and Xing, “A response to an outside object leads to a topic of narration, which gives rise to a thoughtful message properly fit to the situation. ……therefore, a source of incentive carries a metonym to a narrative, a trickle of sight growing into a torrent of discussion.” Liu Xie noticed the Xing’s constituent dichotomy of the rhetoric expression and the source-message process and worked to smooth over the contradiction between the implicit metaphorical mock and the sight-provoked message. But in general, he focused his critical eye on the natural arousal of Xing and mentioned its prominent sight-to-thought effect at many places. He once said, “Humans have seven emotions and it can hardly be denied that they naturally react to sights and reflect on the past and present” (The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons: Four- and Five-Character Poems). Liu Xie believed that humans creatively reacted to external incitement, which was a natural process, and Xing exactly fits into it. He also puts forward in The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons: Fu, “It is clear that ascending a mountain provides a distant view and an opportunity for reflection. The emotion–inspiration interaction produces coherent thought, and the sight–content transition results in extraordinary wording.” The view of Liu Xie about Xing is on the human impulsive response to the environment. Similarly, intellectuals of the Six Dynasties all saw this natural mind-to-sight reaction as crucial. In An Autobiography, Xiao Zixian, a Liang Dynasty historian and literary writer, recalled, “Through my whole life, I have been interested in literary writing. Though not well known I have been content with my artistic dedication. Whenever ascending a height to take a broad view, sauntering on a shore of the river and enjoying the sunset, feeling breezes on a sunlit and enchanting day of spring, seeing swallows at dawn and orioles

58  J. YUAN

at twilight, and being delighted with blooming flowers and falling leaves, I can hardly help responding to the scenery.…I composed each piece without mulling over a given purpose. Instead, everything arrived in its own course without a guideline.” As a celebrity in literary circles of the Liang Dynasty, he let his mind run unrestrained in writing, freed himself of the chains of creative conventions, and exposed his inner world without affectation. Though he didn’t declare his definition of Xing, he was clear in upholding the intuitive reaction as the basic element of poetry and discarding utilitarian didacticism. In the years after the Six Dynasties, the stress on the natural stimulation in terms of the difference of Xing from Bi gradually gained momentum, as seen in the following noted literary statements: Beautiful mountains and valleys and simple customs and habits, they impress masters and sages; whenever seeing and hearing, they feel urged and inspired in an attempt to compose poems. (Su Shi of the Song Dynasty, Preface to “The Exchanges of Poems on the Journey”) From time immemorial no poet has failed in responding to external spurs; seeing and reflecting is the source of Xing. (Ge Lifang of the Song Dynasty, Ge Lifang’s Talks on Poetry) The mood is grounded at heart; the mood is not expressed until emotionally stimulated; then it generates an urge to gives rise to a voice. (Xu Zhenqing of the Ming Dynasty, The Arts of Poetry) Poetry is classified into the six styles, the fourth being Xing; the appearance of Xing originates in an occasion, which provides opportunities for drawing on the subject, presenting a metaphor and completing a poem. (Wang Kaiyun of the Qing Dynasty, The Arts of Poetry to Huang Sheng)

From these statements, one can see that since the Six Dynasties, the stand of viewing Xing as a mental process of the sight-triggered thoughtful response was generally accepted by many critics of poetry and painting. Even traditional classicists could hardly ignore it. For example, Kong Yingda, a Tang Confucian scholar, basically agreed with the points of view about Bi and Xing held by the classicists of the Han Dynasty. But Kong Yingda took the same position as the Six Dynasties’ scholars, in relying on giving free vent of feeling as he commented on poetry: “The sight-response transition leads to a thought but that thought depends on

3  A STUDY OF THE STRUCTURE OF XING 

59

the triggering of the sight. A joy brings up a desire for airing the mind as the music is made on a spur to sing praises, while the vexation is elicited by a broken heart to generate a piece of grievance and satire. The Catalogue reads, ‘The music of grief is a release of anxiety and is translated into ballads, which is definitely true’” (Correct Meaning of “The Book of Songs”). His reference to The History of the Han Dynasty: The Catalogue, written by Ban Gu, gives complementary explanations to the narrative of “spontaneous emotional releasing” by the literary circle of the Six Dynasties. To him, the response of the heart to the sight should not be a man-made process and it is natural. Certainly, this perspective of his contradicts his assertion of the importance of Bi and Xing for Mei and Ci and the ideas being shaped in advance. Such clash in interpretation of Xing was often seen among those after the Six Dynasties. Many found it hard to reject the conventions of treating Bi and Xing so the two categories were frequently mixed up with each other in meaning. For example, the author, supposedly to be Jia Dao, in Ernan’s Talks on the Six Arts of Poetry, said, “A contrast is set up between the two types, and it is for Bi. Beauty and ugliness are put together and the contrast is obvious. If the emperor is muddle-headed and the subject is sycophantic, something can be chosen to ridicule him in analogy; if he is wise and able something can be used to describe him in comparison. A reflection on one object is for Xing. Xing is mainly about the feeling, that is, a response to the external, relating the feeling to one’s own concern. Such feeling should not be restrained so Xing is defined. The poet believes that the emperor and subjects are depraved and puts his thoughts in a poem upon the spur of the sight.” Here, Bi and Xing are still seen as one identity, but the claim on Xing quite departs from that held by the two Han dynasties’ classicists, with the focus on its emotional reaction to the surrounding, a legacy handed down from the study of the Six Dynasties. Meanwhile, some literary writers set out on another epistemological path of Xing, different from the historical perspective of its unity with Bi, and generally discarded the view of Bi and Xing as a whole and saw them separately, when addressing Xing. The author of Styles of Poetry, claimed to be Wang Changling, contended, “First a feeling sets a realization off. One ancient poem goes, ‘As the wind blows the year draws to its end; the crickets and grasshoppers make a doleful chirping; the cold wind chills one to the bone; a traveling man wears no winter clothing.’ Wentong (Jiang Yan) has a poem saying, ‘The northwest wind ushers in

60  J. YUAN

the autumn; a traveler is worried; the sun is setting in the evening glow; his beloved is no sign in sight.’ The above-mentioned poems all present three lines of depicting landscape prompted by the sights and followed by one line of theme.” In Styles of Poetry, the practice of Xing is categorized into fourteen types with the most important being “seeing and reflecting,” which is believed to proceed from the first-hand experiencing of the four season alternation to personal concern. This sight-to-thought transition is purely emotional and uncontrollable with no involvement of political intention. At other places in the discussion of Styles of Poetry, such attempts on its artistic usage also relate to ways of expression in poetry for induced messages such as “the history to thought,” “scenery to thought,” “garments to thought” and “object to thought.” One thing to be noticed is the great progress achieved in Styles of Poetry, which focuses on the poetic skills, dismisses the claims for political services and is free of the conventional confinement of Bi and Xing. It is testimony to the fact that the artistic representation of poetry can be multi-dimensional and fully explored, if an approach to its aesthetics is taken instead of political and didactic intention. Since the Tang and Song dynasties, many literary writers had assumed this stance. In Preface to “The Collection of Poems by Mei Shengyu”, Ouyang Xiu said, “Many people of talent are not socially recognized and their high aspiration cannot be realized. They often turn to idly ventures to mountains and waters, seeing worms, fish, grass, woods, birds, beasts, winds and clouds and wondering about their conditions and states. They relate to their own anxiety and frustration and are evoked to compose pieces of grievance and ridicule, recounting disappointed officials, dejected widows, and the unfortunate that find no way to lay bare the mind. More often than not, the more depressed they are, the better their production becomes.” He carried on Zhong Rong’s viewpoints, believed in the hard life experience as the source of creation and suggested that ambitious learned persons strive to release pent-up emotion from the bosom. They bump into a myriad of things outdoors and try to drown their sorrow with wine. Then the so-called Xing comes into detonate an outpour at the juncture of the internal and external. In the study of the meaning of Xing in the ancient Chinese literary canon, its particular function for activating the creative potentials of the author is often mentioned. It provides the poet with an exit of frustration and a gateway to his/her fruitful production. If the classical learners of the two Han dynasties limit the understanding of Xing to the boundary

3  A STUDY OF THE STRUCTURE OF XING 

61

of “Mei and Ci” and dismiss any attempts of Xing without such ­obvious effect, since these practices obstruct the poet’s desire to realize the ­creative purposes through the incitement of Xing, the poet will have better chance to accomplish his career goals of representing humanity by freeing himself of the political and didactic bonds of “Mei and Ci.” This is further proved by the statement of Li Zhi, a Ming thinker, as he said, “In this world the people endowed with artistic talents never originally want to undertake creative writing as a career. But they sometimes have something in mind, like a fishbone caught in the throat, but are awed and balk at expressing it. At other times, they are ready to say it do not have a proper occasion. After a considerable period of time they can hardly refrain from letting it out. On seeing something that brings up their memories, they will seize the opportunity to drown their sorrow and lay it bare. Their laments have been handed down from ancient times” (Random Thoughts). Li Zhi argued that a forceful artistic appeal could be created by drawing on one’s own personal experience and ethics and presenting written pieces upon stimulation and reflection. Similarly, such works reveal one’s own thoughts and teem with emotion, so they are completely free of the bondage of rites. In the Ming and Qing ­periods, romantic authors advocated the theory of the “display of disposition and freedom from stereotypes,” of which the “sparks of interest” and “stimulating for meaning” were important components.

3.2  The Thought-Dimension of Xing The idea of Xing is meaningful in depth and width as an important component of the Chinese aesthetics and literature and arts. Its thoughtdimension focuses on the multi-fold content extended to the reader who can absorb on the basis of the individual interpretation. In general, the two major ones are as follows. First, it is the “thought expression” of Xing. Creative production generated from the spontaneous urge on given objects and is full of appealing and enduring emotion. From this point of view, Xing is the origin of artistic creation. Without it, masterpieces cannot be created. Since the Wei and Jin dynasties, the “thought expression” had steadily taken its place when people started to approach Xing in this new perspective and believed that the effect of Xing could best reflect a meaningful experience in an art form and characterize the nature of “a shortage of expression.” In his The Art of Writing, Lu Ji argued that choosing a topic

62  J. YUAN

and designing the intended message were the key for solving the issue of “inaccurate choices of words for meaning” and “awkward narratives.” But “to feel and take the prompt to composition” was the first step in creative writing, namely, “to see the four seasons come and go, sighing with feeling, and to watch natural things and reflect on life.” After that, picking a topic and working out the idea follows. Lu Ji believed that the experience of Xing and reflecting was the point of departure for formulating an idea and the trailhead of a path to a production. He asserted the desire for expression brought up from the experience of Xing sometimes can be articulated with words. But at other times, this impulse was an “unspeakable source of feeling,” overwhelming, unavoidable, and uncontrollable by the author and consequently, a blur impossible to be clearly put on paper. Such experience of feeling and thinking, obscure of meaning and indescribable in word, is exactly what Wang Fuzhi called the feature of “Xing with a drifting idea expressed either with intent or by chance.” During the Qi and Liang periods, Zhong Rong clearly put forward, in Preface to “The Critique of Poetry”, “When the words come to an end but the meaning is inexhaustible, that is exactly what Xing is used for.” He formally defined the property of Xing in terms of “the thought-provoking approach” and separated it from “the subject-thought approach.” This indistinct conscience is Xing’s unique way of expression, and this type of presentation is the best form for the inner bridled indescribable emotion. In The Critique of Poetry, Zhong Rong commented on Yuan Ji’s Poems from My Heart by remarking, “Express with what one sees and hears and unfold all-embracing subject matters.” The thought-provoking concept asserted in Yuan Ji’s Poems from My Heart is a unique way of delineation which scarcely finds an equivalent in the conventional practice of Bi and Xing. We can see a major difference by comparison between the methods utilized in Poems from My Heart and The Book of Songs. The former either only relies on Xing to get started in composition or completely counts on Xing throughout. Taking a closer look even reveals that each particular application is implicit and bewildering, difficult to grasp, on “a far-reaching metaphor beyond the limits of any poem of the time.” In the Southern Song Dynasty, Yan Yannian found it hard to decipher and annotate those poems. Undeniably, Ruan Ji created his masterpieces of poetry characteristic of profundity and implication, based on his own personality and experience in a given time period. In the meantime, he pioneered a new possibility for exploring Xing’s property of “being less said than desired” and immensely thought-provoking.

3  A STUDY OF THE STRUCTURE OF XING 

63

Meanwhile, the expression built on individual experience and innovation does not exclude Xing’s other functions of figurative usage, satire and admonishment. Instead, it can only make poems more broadly arranged, emotionally touching and deeper in significance. Artistic presentations differ from political comments in light of written communication and are carried out with a set of regulations, which help transform emotion to ideas so as to combine personal experience with emotional appeal in getting across universal messages. After the Han and Wei dynasties, the evolution of Xing from the political and didactic intention to an independent branch of aesthetics marked a new direction of the study with depth and thoroughness. Since the Wei and Jin dynasties, the study of Xing had gradually turned attention to implications, when people were poised to learn about its time-honored value that “the words come to an end, but the meaning is inexhaustible” and followed in the direction to develop its creative potentials and understand its constitutional structure. One example is Su Zhe of the Northern Song Dynasty, who claimed, in On Poetry, “A sight strikes a chord in an author’s heart before an idea is formulated. That is only the desire related to a distant past, which cannot be brought up in memory. Consequently this yearning can be felt but is hard to be put into words.” What he asserted is that the practice of Xing basically associates with the “desire” instead of the “emotion.” It is unlikely that he failed to notice that the source of stimulation comes from the feeling. But he saw this not as an ordinary inner activity of feeling. Instead, it was mainly an experience of reasoning coupled by a true feeling, reason encased in feeling, the highest realm of creation. The reader cannot understand the effect of Xing without the special reading skill of “meaning internalization.” Actually, Su Zhe, in his understanding of Xing saw eye to eye with Ruan Ji with his Poems from My Heart in terms of those profound poems, different from the views of Li Bai, who is interested in composing poems with the abrupt, lucid and free-spirited response to prompts. Obviously, the Song writers embrace the reserved, implicit part of Xing. In the Qing Dynasty, some critics also showed their own views of the verse execution in this regard. For example, Yuan Mei said in his Suiyuan Poetry, “Reading a poem implying no truth is like chewing a candle.” In Comments on Poetry at the House of Zhenyi, Li Zhonghua explained, “The role of Xing gets the task more than half way done in poetry composition. In depicting the bird, beast, grass and trees, heaven is not explicitly mentioned but exists dimly; earth is not particularly referred to

64  J. YUAN

but is actually embraced; in an account of an experience the narrative is vague but its steadfast moral is felt. With the equipment of Xing, poetry is complete with the supernatural reason.” He believed that the application of Xing demonstrated the poet’s accomplishments, which were not evident of Mei, Ci, Bi and Xing but the making of the ideal state of meaning. Thus, a poem written with the skill of Xing was filled with the supernatural reason. His perception of Xing with respect to the state of meaning and supernatural reason was insightful and also deepened the study of exploring the potential of Xing since the Wei and Jin dynasties. Second, it is the broad-minded implication of Xing. Historically as the study of Xing gradually progressed, new interpretations of the broadminded implication of Xing appeared. The earliest attempt at this definition came from the belief held by the Confucian scholars of the Western and Eastern Han dynasties. They considered Bi and Xing as one and saw their difference only lay in the choice of simile and metaphor. They also referred to Xing as “metonymy.” The reason for choosing this term is apparently due to Xing’s mild and tactful diction relevant to straightforward and profound words of Mei and Ci. Due to the choice of the subject matter, the play of Xing remained on the plane of the “metonymy” and was hardly separable from the role of Bi that featured the “objectcentered analogy” with no sense of free rein. But once the purpose is freed of the political and didactic intention, it is clear that one’s heart can be so vast and deep to be expressed and understood, just as what French fiction writer Victor Hugo had said “The ocean is broader than the land, and the sky is broader than the ocean, but the still broader is the human heart.” In The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons: Bi and Xing, Liu Xie observed, “Given the similarity with metonymy the use of Xing stresses an indirect message, economic in description but profound in meaning.” Here, what he meant by “economic in description but profound in meaning” is the characteristic of the metonymy, that is, the high crystallization of thought. Toward the end of this chapter on Bi and Xing, Liu Xie acclaimed Xing’s value of “seeking the identical significance from the similar appearances,” once more emphasizing the major property of Xing in terms of uplifting narration to a lofty ideal, reinforcing the meaning and stressing the broad-minded implication of Xing. Critical of Zhang Hua the Western Jin author, Zhong Rong says in his The Critique of Poetry, “His works are full of flowery language and lack techniques of Xing and figures of speech. They are elaborate and ornamental. Though he was a widely acknowledged poet in the past, forthright people dismiss

3  A STUDY OF THE STRUCTURE OF XING 

65

his poems as good at the portrayal of love between man and woman and weak in the bold ideal.” Here, Zhong Rong meant, by “Xing and figures of speech,” the unfortunate life experience and laments instead of the intention for Mei and Ci in The Book of Songs. He focused on the expression of the individual temperament and emotion, which carried a far more significance than the general handling of Mei and Ci. This broad-minded implication of Xing was widely accepted and implemented later in the Tang and Sing dynasties. Beside Chen Ziang for his idea of “Xing for lament,” a great number of literary writers experimented with the idea in literary criticism. For example, in his “Preface” to A Collection of Treatises of Cao Xujun Assistant Official of the Left Military Department, Quan Dexing remarked, “Since the Jian’an period, poetry had increasingly decayed, particularly during the Qi and Liang period when the emperor and subjects were portrayed but stress was on the scenery and rhetoric instead of morals. Later in the reign of Kaiyuan, this trend was somewhat curbed so that the style and stimulation was maintained.” He lashed out at those poets interested in the rhetoric at the cost of the idea and admitted the attenuation of the tendency later in the reign period of Kuaiyuan. His use of the words “style and stimulation” was relevant to the broad-minded implication as part of poetry, similar to Chen Ziang’s “Xing for lament.” Another example comes from Gao Zhongwu’s A Collection of Poems after the Anshi Rebellion, which remarks, “Zhongfu (referred to the Tang poet Zhang Zhongfu) is established as one good at indirect phrasing, elaborate rhetoric and display of the adroit development of Xing for metaphor. One case in point is that ‘I ignore the bandwagon in the change of situation and only feel indebted for receiving food at harsh time,’ which is the feature of narration. Another instance is ‘sailing against the current to serve following generations,’ which shows the importance of Xing for satire.” His two phrases of “Xing for metaphor” and “the importance of Xing for satire” point out the proper use of these forms to account for one’s suffering and deep concerns. In the Qin Dynasty, critics of ci poems such as Zhou Ji and Chen Tingzhuo strove to promote the broad-minded implication of Xing in the composition of ci poems and believed that this poetic figure of speech of metonym was crucial to ci poems. In his Remarks on Lyrics from White Rain Studio, Chen Tingzhuo affirmed, “Humans cannot resist responding and reflecting and thoughts cannot be drifting in a haze without a vehicle. If the implication is not sagacious, the appeal is not felt; if the meaning is deep but the wording is not elegant, the

66  J. YUAN

reading is superficial and incapable of indicating the intended message.” To Chen, ci poems and poetry were different, in that, in poetry, the feeling gives rise to the expression of thought, while for ci poems, the thought is mild and profound with enduring artistic impact. The Qing critics appreciated very much the elegance of the broad-minded implication presented in ci poems. But they were also aware of the necessity of implying messages by complying with the rules of natural and free composition. If the implication is forced upon a piece to achieve the metaphoric implication for its own sake, the whole purpose is ruined and artificial effect is generated. Therefore, they stressed the unity of the “broad-minded implication” and “temperament.” The application of Xing is actually a natural and free process, and, if a piece of writing is not completed with a well-controlled flawless implication, it would be like moaning without illness. Kuang Zhuoyi, a Qing critic of ci poems maintains, in Huifeng’s Commentary on Ci Poems, “It is important of ci poems to carry broad-minded implications. It is valuable that the author originally did not intend for a moral message but that feeling is released without notice. He may unconsciously refrain himself from revealing his past memories but the urge to express is irresistible. It is the temperament and broad-minded implications and they are not mutually dependable by structure.” This statement is to the point, in that it emphasizes an uncontrollable composing process, in which depressing thoughts sooner or later are to be put in words. If it is done with a guided purpose, it wrecks the creation of broad-minded implications. Another Qing critic of ci poems, Zhou Ji, in Preface to “Contents of Selected Poems of the Four Poets of the Song Dynasty”, also agreed, “With regard to the ci poetry, the crux cannot get into it without the broad-minded implication, nor can it come out successful if accomplished for its own sake.” Zhou Ji emphasized that a ci poem should carry the broad-minded message and otherwise it would not be a master piece. But a purposely imposed guideline would leave the work unnatural. So, a good poet should be able to enter it and come out successful, i.e., to enter the state with a broad, profound message, from here to far, and to rise from it with a written presentation, with the natural function of Xing, a response from the heart in a unconstrained way. From the angle of aesthetics, it is a release of held frustrations by the poet prompted on a given occasion. This long depressed feeling will certainly find a way out whenever a chance sparked by Xing rises and bring out tears of sorrow and regret.

CHAPTER 4

Xing and Its Artistic Vigor

Abstract  From the viewpoint of culture and anthropology, the meaning of Xing, as a key concept of ancient Chinese aesthetics, highlights some elements of the ancient Chinese culture, maintains the rudiments of the living experience and creative activity of the ancients and incorporates the critical and rational ideas of the subsequent years. Its present significance has become multi-dimensional. In history, the evolution of Xing has been also merging with other concepts to generate a few profound ideas, enriching its original meaning. For us, those ideas throw light on its generating potential and derivatives. Keywords  Miraculous thought · Sparks of interest Sparks of excitement · Sparks of image From the viewpoint of culture and anthropology, the meaning of Xing, as the key concept of ancient Chinese aesthetics, highlights some elements of the ancient Chinese culture, maintains the rudiments of the living experience and creative activity of the ancients and incorporates the critical and rational ideas of the subsequent years. Its present significance has become multi-dimensional. A review of its development will be constructive to a deepened study of Xing, an ancient concept of aesthetics that is experience-attainable rather than acquired by cognitive learning. © Foreign Language Teaching and Research Publishing Co., Ltd. 2019 J. Yuan, Redefining Chinese Literature and Art, Key Concepts in Chinese Thought and Culture, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-3555-6_4

67

68  J. YUAN

4.1   Xing and Its Form in the Pre-historical Life The involvement of Xing in the pre-historical life involves the time when ancient people started to give up indigenous tribe living for clan society in the Stone Age. During this time, they lived by fishing, hunting and collecting eatable plants; their tools of labor were rather crude. They had close ties with nature. To make a living and keep reproduction, they counted on the game, fish and plants for food and sought warm-keeping materials for the cold weather from the land and waters. In that era, they interacted, at leisure times, with the surroundings, heaven, the earth, birds and beasts—all things that impacted and confined them, feeling both cordial and awed. In the ancient times, people wrote ballads and poems along with other creative activities such as music and dance as ways of presenting life experience. In comparison with plastic arts such as painting, poetry became a representation that appeared later in company with music and dance to formulate a three-dimensional manifestation of life. Ernst Grosse, in his The Beginnings of Art, said that, “The most primitive form was the lyrics that focused on music and left the purpose of poetry in a subordinate place.”1 He thought that the early poems were generally written for sound effects and their meanings were secondary. The reason that they were subjected to the secondary tier of evaluation is that they were the lyrics of rhymed ballads sung by laborers and for religious services. When the form of Xing came into being later, people started to have a newer and higher representation of life. Gradually, poetry grew into an independent way of expressing thoughts provoked by the surroundings and turning emotion into meaningful scripts, along with other forms including music and dance. From the earliest Chinese collection of poems, The Book of Songs, we may clearly see those scattered primordial signs of induced image. Based on the contemporary materials and research findings of archaeology and history, ancient Chinese started to live by fishing, hunting and gathering along the valleys of the Yangtze River and the Yellow River very early in history and gradually settled in the mode of farming and animal husbandry. The life in the clan society provided people with opportunities for first-hand experiences of observing and responding to the environment so as to generate the primeval mode of induced image. That is what the Tang poet Jiao Ran said in his Poetic Styles, “All things on earth, birds, fish, grass, trees, and people, are seen in comparison for

4  XING AND ITS ARTISTIC VIGOR 

69

similarity and reflection for analogy and intended messages.” In other words, the messages given in poetry were no more than those taken from various phenomena in life observed by ballad composers, all objects of early people’s perception in agricultural production. In The Book of Songs, many images, created in ballads in the sense of Bi and Xing, show the signs of ancient people’s engagement in farming and animal husbandry. Many ballads from The Book of Songs were written on the spur of birds and beasts such as The Odes of Bei: A Swallow and The Odes of Wei: A Fox. Others were based on grass and trees such as The Odes of Tang: A Birch and The Odes of Zheng: Turnips. Still others were incited in fishing such as The Odes of Qi: Bamboo Fishing Cases and The Odes of Chen: A Log Cabin. In addition, some references were imagined about mythical animals such as the unicorn from The Odes of Zhounan: Feet of the Unicorn and the phoenix from The Major Court Songs: Undulating Hills. Creating fictitious animals as creative sources of inspiration indicates a clear awakening to the religious practices. We may first take a look at those poems with prompts of birds, which can be seen in The Odes of Bei: A Swallow, The Odes of Bei: The South Wind, The Odes of Tang: The Wings of a Swallow, The Folk Songs: Felling a Tree, The Folk Songs: The Swan Goose, The Folk Songs: The Mian River, The Folk Songs: A Pigeon. These poems demonstrate the skills of Bi and Xing in describing the author’s feeling and thought at the sight of the object. For example, The Folk Songs: A Turtledove reads: A little turtledove was soaring in the skies. In sorrow I was thinking about my dear ones. With sleepless nights I was cherishing The memory of two persons.

In Studies on “The Book of Songs”, Zhu Xi commented on this poem that “two persons” are referred to the poet’s parents as a spark of thought. Seeing a small bird fly in the air and return to its nest brought up the memories of his deceased parents and the lament that how deeply he cherished their memory. Here, the soaring turtledove provides the stimulus for a passionate expression of grief. In another case, The Folk Songs: The Wild Goose carries a narrative, “The wild goose flies high, one gripping cry after another,” depicting the special envoy of Duke Xuan of Zhou calling on wandering laborers to return to their home land. In Preface to Mao’s Version of “The Book of Songs”, the explanation

70  J. YUAN

is presented, “The Folk Songs: The Wild Goose is a praising ballad about Duke Xuan of Zhou. Thousands of laborers wandered around the lands and away from home. They were diligent and should be called back to settle down and resume normal life. Those singles should be subsidized with state financial supports.” Later mournful cries of the wild goose became an example of sparking off a poetic composition and a symbol for the homeless. The wailing of the wild goose easily gives the poet the incentive for thinking of the sorrow of the homeless, as delineated in “A wild goose flies in the sky, flapping its wings. The man is drafted, slaving away in the field. So miserable he is and a pitiful widower.” The wild goose can fly enormous distances over vast swaths of the north and south and freely choose its nest to perch. But those wretched vagrants cannot return home. This expression of the poet’s mind introduced upon the sight of the object was significant and influential and became a popular way of literary representation in the times to come. In Guan Zhong: Hegemony, one dialogue is recorded between Duke Huan of Qi and Guan Zhong, showing poets of the agricultural society recounting their harsh life with the image of wild geese in flight, as in the following, “Duke Huan was seated when Guan Zhong and Xi Peng entered. Then there were a couple of wild geese flying over in the sky. Duke Huan sighed: ‘Zhongwen, those wild geese fly sometimes south and sometimes north. They leave and later come back. No matter how far and in what direction they can reach their destination. I am amazed that, because they have the wings, they can get their message across to all people in the land under heaven.’” Duke Huan of Qi envied the wild geese that were not restrained in flight and able to carry their intent far and wide. This approach to the freedom of the goose actually shows a way of representing thoughts through particular things developed by people living in the early times. In the Southern and Northern dynasties, China was torn by continued wars, people became destitute, homeless and wandering. The north and south were split, so that the wild goose became the prompting subject for expressing the feeling of homesickness and longing for return. Shen Yue, in Preface to “The Book of Song”: The Annals of Music, describes the homeless wandering to the south of the Yangtze River Delta, after the capital of the Western Ji dynasties was transferred to the east, “The ordinary people sing ‘The Folk Songs: The Wild Goose,’ the scholars are overcome with homesickness and acute nostalgia for hometowns; Everyone cherishes the memories of the past and yearns for the return.” Thus, the phrase “the wild goose delivering messages” was derived and

4  XING AND ITS ARTISTIC VIGOR 

71

used in the poetry, drama, prose, and fiction of the later times. The conveyance of emotion through the image of the wild goose specifically captures the farmers’ happiness to stick to their native living and sentiment of “the will of heaven forbidding the desertion of home.” In the remote ages, the masses often showed their collective experience in carnivals of fun. The character Xing first appeared in the oracle bone writings, scripted as “ ” to mean one object held up by many hands. That object “ ” is up to the interpretation of critics. Some say that it is an ancient washbasin. This view was first put forward by Luo Zhenyu and Shang Chengzuo. Others say that it is “sail” or “canvas” in ancient terms, a view first originally held by Ye Yusun and later by Yang Shuda. But in either case, they both refer to the meaning of Xing. In the inscriptions on the oracle bones, there are three variants of Xing. First, it is scripted as “ ” in Bronze Tripod Vessels similar to those of the inscriptions on the oracle bones. Another two forms are seen in Bronze Cooking Containers and Tripod Cauldrons, similar to the first but with an addition of the radical mouth. In A Study of Inscriptions on Ancient Bronzes and Stone Tablets, Yang Shuda noted, “When lifting and raising a heavy object, a group of people should move in unison to one command. Therefore, one man gave the order before the rest operated together. That is the reason for the addition of the radical mouth.” An Explanation of Script and Elucidation of Characters gives an explanation about Xing, “The meaning of Xing dates back to the ancient language; it means the desire to do something and joint forces to do something.” Obviously, it refers to its origin in the inscriptions on the oracle bones. Duan Yucai noted that “In A Rhyme Dictionary, it is defined as ‘grand,’ ‘raising’ and ‘virtuous.’ The Rites of Zhou mentions six types of ballads include Bi and Xing. Xing means committing a message to an object. In the ancient Chinese pronunciation, there was no difference between the level and the falling tones.” From An Explanation of Script and Elucidation of Characters, one can see the form of the character like some object held up with hands by some reveling dancers. The role of Xing exactly serves as an incentive for “holding up one object,” which translates to a group dance. This type of dancing in early times is in agreement with the nature of the collective tribe dance. Noted scholars Shang Chengzuo, in his A Study of the Unearthed Artifacts of the Yin Ruins, and Guo Moruo, in his A Study of the Oracle Inscriptions of the Shang Dynasty, believed that the meaning of Xing was about a group of people singing and dancing around one “ ” object.

72  J. YUAN

From the archaeological findings available about the early types of dance in the primitive period, one can see that they generally stemmed from living experiences and emotional outlets at times of labor, war, sacrifice and courtship. The rock paintings, to the north of the Yinshan Mountains, in the grassland of the city of Ulanqab, inner Mongolia, and those of the Huashan Mountain, Guangxi, all depict some figures lifting something up with bent arms or holding it up.2 Their body positions basically fit the description of the character in An Explanation of Script and Elucidation of Characters. This shows the dance movements, no matter whether from the popular areas of central China or the border regions of the minority nationalities, had something in common, that is, stretching up the arms and spreading the four limbs in moving for joy to their heart’s content. This is the highest form of representing the mind by early people motivated in their living. In The Arts of Chinese Aesthetics, Li Zehou said: These primeval aesthetic consciousness and artistic presentation were not created with imitation and observation, different from the assumptions of the later scholars of aesthetics in the perspective of the origin of the appreciation of beauty. In contrast, they were a kind of carnival. The so-called “dragons flying and phoenixes dancing” exactly mark the totems with their spiritual significance and depicts one type of fervent rituals of sorcery. Songs, dances, plays, fairy tales and incantations developed in later times were originally all mixed together in this uniformed jumbo of supernatural rituals in the primeval age, displaying zealot, intoxication, piety, barbarity, enthusiasm and rigor…3

This quotation graphically describes the primitive dance performances carrying the components of sorcery, religion, emotion and thought. A revelry would usually involve the totem presentation with dancers performing to music. In those early ages, at each grand feast, celebration and festival, totems of animals were presented in the dancing carnival, in which all members of the clan participated, led by the well-trained wizard, to jubilate for the harvest and victory of the war. Also the ritual of totem presentation played a role of mediating among clan members so as to consolidate their unity and relationship under the chosen god. In addition, worship via totems generated religious taboos and dominated local norms and customs. In sacrifice services, a set of regulations and rites were required for clan members to abide by and any movement of

4  XING AND ITS ARTISTIC VIGOR 

73

the hand and foot was strictly defined with sacredness and inviolable. A violation was considered as a blasphemy and would incur public wrath. This religious form of dancing rose from the custom of displaying totems and was an artistic creation based on the mental reaction in stark contrast to the dance of courtship, mostly featured in animal instinct. The latter was purely in response to lack of conscience. But the former carried a specific inner sense though not distinctly describable. The dancer displayed a main conscience through the passionate body language, guided by the will, in reacting with the limbs to nature and interacting with other participants, and translated the religious intent into a meaningful body sign and language. This practice of integrating religious ideas and taboos into customs and habits gradually was extended to all areas of social life through the ages. As a result, this process of evolution helped to promote the making of Xing from lively religious experiences to the refinement of artistic creation. In this transition, its salient feature was best represented by the unity of poetry, music and dance. In ancient China, poetry, music and dance were generally considered a three-formed unity. Through them, people showed religious piety as prayers were presented to nature for happiness and luck of averting bad fortune. They also worked as a mediator between yin and yang and medium for worship by way of totems. In Zuo’s Commentary on The Spring and Autumn Annals: The Ninth Year of the Reign of Duke Yin of Lu, the author recorded, “Dance is performed on the eight music scales representing eight winds.” In the agricultural society, humans were powerless to natural disasters so they sent their prayers to imaginary gods to be blessed. To them, good weather for the crops could be obtained with continued praying and thus, music could be used for this purpose. In The Book of Rites: The Music, the effect of music of the early times was often recorded, “The ground vapor rises to the sky and the upper air descends; yin and yang come in clash as heaven and earth shake; in addition they are accompanied by thunder and lightning and intensified by winds and rains; the cycle of the four seasons runs endlessly and the sun and moon brighten the land; consequently, all living things are produced and live. Therefore, music is about the oneness of heaven and earth.” According to the author of The Book of Rites: The Music, nature runs in endless cycles, winds and rains moistening the crops, the four seasons complementing each other, and the sun and moon shuttling back and forth. Faintly, an invisible force is felt to reign in harmony and administer the course of life. Furthermore, this multi-part harmony is the essence of

74  J. YUAN

music and represented by way of Xing in its fusion of life and arts. One section from The Book of Rites: The Music is “Music Enlightenment,” which defines, “Music is the mandate of heaven and earth and the cardinal law of neutralization that is indispensable to humanity.” The musician, as a messenger between the gods and the earth, was engaged in producing music compositions of the great harmony of the world, connecting human life with supernatural beings and creating the tone of good weather for the crops, peace for the country and abundance for people. In fact, this musician was the sorcerer, the earliest professional musician. In order to hand down from generation to generation, the clan-life-focused religiously ritualized music pieces of respecting heaven, worshipping gods and celebrating the harmony of nature and humanity, music teaching became an important task of the local communities. One statement, presumably believed to be made by Shun the Great, comes from The Book of History: The Canon of Yao, which recounts, “The emperor says, ‘Kui, take charge of music and teach the young how to play. The music to be presented should be direct and mild, broad and solemn, vigorous but not harsh, simple but not arrogant. Poetry reveals aspiration; songs narrate; the five-tone scale is set for songs; the pitch pipes are blown to set pitches; the eight types of instruments are harmonious without discord, so that the oneness of gods and man is created.’ Kui replies: ‘Yes! I would play the tone by striking the chime stones and let the dance troupe perform and imitate various animal movements.’” From this quotation, we can see the role of Xing as the mediator between gods and humans and the messenger between poetry and the will. It is noticeable that at this moment of history, the nature of Xing in terms of creativity started to appear in a transition of expression from religion to aesthetics, particularly from music and dance to poetry. The written linguistic presentation of poetry unquestionably reinforced the human awareness of the aesthetic significance. In Preface to “Mao’s Version”, the author observed once that, “Poetry is composed to express one’s thought. The thought originates in the heart and mind and is expressed through the form of poetry. The inner feeling takes shape but is made public in language. When language is short of expression, the writer regrets. Regret leads to singing songs. When songs also fail to live up to the desire, dancing is adopted with hand and foot movements.” This comment points out the different perspective of ancient Chinese arts from that of its Western counterpart, in that the three forms

4  XING AND ITS ARTISTIC VIGOR 

75

of poetry, music and dance are classified on the degrees of intensity in emotional expression as opposed to the different types of imitation and the subject matter. In the history of arts and human life, dances were the best form of representing those irresistible urges and feelings by way of loud chants and movements of the limbs. Therefore, the practice of Xing in the evolution from depicting living experience to creating artistic productions and culminating in the unity of the meaning and means came into play in the body language of dance with best effects. Focusing on the body movement and rhythm of music, the dance best expresses the meaning of “Xing being rising” and “the aroused feeling with the rising body,” mostly believed by later generations. Dance, a body form, parallels poetry, a written form, equally successful in getting participants stimulated for expression. In The Rites of Zhou: Offices of Earth, the duties of the local officials are described, “At the ritual of archery competition five virtues are defined: first, display of physique; second, display of good appearance; third, display of superb archery; fourth, display of learning of folk songs, court songs, hymns and eulogies; fifth, display of dance versatility.” According to Kong Yingda’s Annotations, “Display of dance versatility means starting to dance.” In The Book of Songs, The Folk Songs: Felling Trees recorded at one time, “Squatting and rising I am dancing.” Zheng Xuan offered a note, saying “Rise, squat and dance for me.” Those accounts all indicate the widely accepted viewpoint of dance and poetry as forms of presenting emotion and thought in the Zhou Dynasty.

4.2   Xing and Its Sources of Inspiration Xing was also associated with inspiration in ancient China, which was particularly clear in the mind of critics. In Ernan Talks on the Six Arts of Poetry, widely believed to be authored by Jia Dao, one section defines, “Xing is about emotion. It stems from the external object and results in the inner emotion. As the feeling is irresistible its release is thus called Xing.” In contrast to thinking, feeling is rather elusive. Thought revealing induced by feeling is often randomly impacted by various objective and subject factors and myriad in appearance. In A Study of Poetry, the Song poet Wu Wei said, “Poetry is comprised of the six arts and Xing is one of them. It is realized through the stimulating process of poetic composition by various scenes such as yin and yang, cold and heat, grass, trees, birds, animals, mountains, and valleys.” He noticed that the effect of Xing was generated by the surroundings as the aesthetic psyche and

76  J. YUAN

creative desire and it is frequently contingent and indeterminate, that is, “an instinctive reflection.” In the Ming Dynasty, Xu Zhenqing, in his Critical Comments on Poetry, remarked, “Emotion is indeterminable and touched off to give rise to a reflection. It is the state of feeling that is expressed in writing.” Those comments stress chance interactions between the heart and objects and are true of the accidental and abrupt nature in terms of creation with inspiration. This approach rejects artistic interpretations of utilitarianism, since any creative presentation, restrained with pre-determined utilitarian motives led by conventional concepts and given expectations, would be deprived of its freedom of expression and become equivalent to Fu and Bi in light of perspective and style. In other words, Xing is unique of the accidental contact between the heart and the scene. It is reasonable to see Xing in terms of its aesthetic psychology rather than political and didactic purport. Confucian classicists often attempted to deduce from its resultant impact a role of sublimating general narratives into awe-striking expression, while aestheticians took an in-depth look at its psychological features. It is because only a basic analysis of psychological changes can reveal its nature of width and profundity and allow people to see its clear difference from Fu and Bi, in that it features unique aesthetic activities, but Fu and Bi stress types of recognition and representation. Indeed, Xing sticks out with the perspective of aesthetic psychology for its conspicuous tendency of inspiration with no sign of origin and trace. It often pops up as a torrent of emotion and then suddenly vanishes in the creating process of poetry and other art forms, thus giving an air of indistinct thematic structure. In this regard, people from the Wei and Jin dynasties sometimes described it as “miraculous thought.” In the history of the Western and Chinese aesthetic study, the ancient Chinese relatively started earlier than their Western counterparts in taking this unique view of psychological creativity. In an analysis of literary writing, Lu Ji, a Western Jin author, made a point of the mysterious inspiration in addition to the widely acknowledged components of writing as he observes in The Arts of Writing, “The clash of feeling and thinking arrives by the sudden response to the spur and then an idea dawns on the writer. It is irresistible and irretrievable. When it is gone, the image vanishes but the idea resounds in the distance.” His reference to “the clash between feeling and thinking” emphasizes the effect of Xing, characterized by the accidental and indeterminable elements of composition, as it arrives suddenly and overwhelmingly, but disappears

4  XING AND ITS ARTISTIC VIGOR 

77

irresistibly, completely out of the human control. When it suddenly hits the poet, ideas surge and are crammed into the mind, but when it vanishes, the mind goes blank and there is no way to retrieve any thought. In the Qi and Liang dynasties, Liu Xie, in The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons: Imagination, also revealed this kind of inspiration, with which “language can be adeptly used so that the given meaning is best expressed but when the train of thought is clogged the effect is not achieved.” His contemporary literary writer, Xiao Zixian said, in The History of the Southern Qi Dynasty: Literature, “All literary writers are inspired. Their imagination is intangible and infinitely various. It rings with the five notes of scale and shapes a polished work. Thousands of things are depicted and extraordinary pieces are produced.” In comparison with Lu Ji and Liu Xie, he saw literature as different from classics and histories and produced with intelligence and particularly emphasizes the feature of “miraculous thought” in outlining the literary work. To lay stress on the feature of inspiration carried by Xing, ancient literary critics went to great lengths to differentiate it from the narrative Fu and the analogy-figured Bi, both of which were applied on set ideas and mostly reasonable. But the use of Xing appears emotional in general and remains so with the immediate feeling and impulse overriding the hidden logic elements. As a result, poetic creation appears structurally unguided and comes to completion by the chance encounter of the sight. Northern Song poets Su Xun and his son Su Shi once attempted to account for the free-initiated writing process as the writing forced upon by the chance encounter of the sight. This definition of the writing process implies the major non-utilitarian characteristic of artistic creation as opposed to activities of cognition and subjectivity (admittedly given the poet’s long cultivated reasoning power and morals). Unmistakably, their views theoretically contribute to a distinct classification between the production of poetry, prose and painting and that of classics, history, political treatise and reading in an effort to make the former an independent original engagement. Since the Han and Wei dynasties, writers had consciously worked in the direction, as the trend was closely tied up with the prevailing culture of upholding Xing and rejecting Confucianism as a trend promoted by scholar officials. It was clearly the artists’ rising awakening to the nature of creation. Since then, their gained insight to the inspiration embodied in Xing had been carried on as many followers continued to maintain the freely initiated, non-manipulated process of composition. For example, Southern Song writer Yang Wanli wrote in

78  J. YUAN

his poem “An Evening Poem to the Narcissus, Lakes and Hills”: “Wellturned phrases are not created with the will; the lines finished are not up to expectation; I do not strive to pen the verse but it comes to my mind without notice.” The Qing poet Yuan Mei has a poem “An Old Man”: “Old as I am, I am not accustomed to writing artistry; one or two poems are all the production I can make in a month; instead of going out to find my poem it dawns on me without knowing; I know it is the way of nature.” Another Qing writer Jiao Xun presented the remarks from his An Reply to Luo Yangzhai, “Seeing hills and rivers brings up memories of the past, as the state of mind is ready and the sap is rising, so ideas spill over into poems.” These well-known writers, enriched in learning and writing experience, repeatedly address the natural stimulation in the process of Xing with no subjective layout being the ideal state of creation. Truly, the miraculous technique is that the more one allows himself free rein, the better verse he produces; the more restrains are imposed on one-self, and the fewer master pieces are created. Very early in history, talented ancient Chinese critics were aware of this unique law of free feeling and writing without predetermined guidance. Nevertheless, accidental as it is, it is inevitable as well. Ancient Chinese critics perceived Xing ’s accidental and natural feature in parallel to its inevitability. From some levels of understanding, the value of its naturalness does not mean aimless stimulating and random composing, which often result in a reckless and vulgar treatment of the subject matter. The beauty of natural reflection precisely is embodied in the deep understanding of life and accomplished nurture of culture. The Tang poet Jiao Ran asserted, in his Poetic Styles, “Sometimes one hits on an idea and writes profusely well. He cannot refrain from continuing as if assisted with superhuman strength. But it is not really true. How can one feel a surge of remarkable thought without an ideal state of mental readiness and accumulated refinement?” Jiao Ran believed that a poet fills with vigor and imagination and keeps writing with sparks of thought. He seemed aided by supernatural forces, but this is not mysterious. It resulted from his accumulated knowledge and experience over a long period of time. He explained the overflowing of thought in terms of Xing in the angle of combining accidentalness and inevitability. The nature of Xing originates in the accumulation of lifelong setback and frustration and the poet takes the opportunity of the sight to reveal his heart. This is an irresistible process of emotional release. Lu You said, “It is natural and normal to repress prolonged sorrows but to let them go

4  XING AND ITS ARTISTIC VIGOR 

79

suddenly in verse. Otherwise there would have been no poetry. Through hundreds of ages great poets have emerged with irrepressible emotion such as Su Wu, Li Ling, Tao Qian, Xie Lingyun, Du Fu and Li Bai” (A Retired Scholar at the Shrine of Danzhai). Recalling his own creative experience, Lu You generalized that most highly acclaimed literary works since the Han and Wei dynasties had been productions of individual authors’ grief released on the spur of external sights, giving vent to irrepressible emotion. Similarly, who had not established himself in literature and arts, since the Tang and Song dynasties, without going through the ebb and flow of career, vicissitudes of officialdom and times of adversity? The psychological phenomenon often appears when a poet goes through the process of feeling a flood of emotion as inspiration gushes out of the mind, thinking coupled with uttering words, dancing for joy and overwhelmed with excitement, similar to the state of mind that a poet experienced when, shaking all over, inspired with thoughts, as described by Plato in his Plato’s Dialogues. In Wang Zi’s Talks on Poetry in the Year of Wusi, the Ming critic of poetry Tan Yuanchun claims, “When composing a poem I am completely concentrated. Suddenly I feel a rush of thought and start uttering words and scribbling down lines. My heart is fully in charge of my hand and mouth. My hand and mouth are not the ones to take the initiative. When the spring of thought stops flowing, my hand and mouth come to a standstill. My heart is in power.” What he graphically depicted here is a surge of inspiration, forceful and unpredictable. But when the train of thought is interrupted, it is hard to continue. This is an abrupt occurrence. It is fruitless to predict before the occurrence and to bring it under control intentionally. This is the valuable part of Xing, so is its part of inevitability. That is why Lu Ji sighed with emotion, in The Arts of Writing, “Although I wrote the piece the idea and inspiration were beyond my control. Therefore, I have often regretted that I just do not know how I obtained them.” In the Song Dynasty, Ge Lifang noted, in his Ge Lifang on Poetry, “There is an account of a time when Xie Wuyi asked Pan Dalin, ‘Could you share your recently completed poem with me?’ Pan Dalin replied, ‘This autumn I wracked my brains but could not come up with anything. Yesterday finally I hit upon the line ‘The town fills with the air of the forthcoming Double Ninth Festival,’ but the rent collector arrived for the payment and broke my train of thought. It is the only line that I can give you.’ It is apparently hard to obtain inspiration but easy to cut it short.” Pan Dalin pondered over a topic of poetry and eventually got one line by chance. But the

80  J. YUAN

poor scholar was disappointed by the sudden arrival of the rent collector. As the man left, Pan had no way to complete the rest of the poem. Wang Fuzhi once used “the miraculous sense” to describe this phenomenon: “The miraculous sense loafs around far and near. It hits me without notice and then takes off in a blink” (Desultory Remarks on Poetry from Ginger Studio). This statement vividly explains the dimly discernible and indeterminate quality of Xing. Since it is not something that one can obtain as designed, instead of musing over it, one should wait and jump at the chance to fulfill the potential of Xing. As early as in The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragon: Muses, Liu Xie put forward, “The four seasons rotate to present different views and the poet should relax and seize the sight to compose.” To relax is to make one-self less tense and anxious. Liu Xie believed that in the spring, summer, autumn and winter, one gets a myriad of scenes. But The Book of Songs and The Lament present master pieces portraying beautiful views of nature that are unparalleled. If a poet tries hard to put down a couple of lines, the result is usually not as expected nor is it successful. Since it is the case, one should sit quietly, calm down and wait for a chance. In this way, one is able to reach the state of creation and overtake the predecessors. In the Tang Dynasty, Japanese monk Henjō-kongō observed, in his A Collection of Treatises on Poetry from the Northern, Southern and Tang Dynasties: Poetry Composition, “When one is restless and dismayed it is not the right moment for getting stimulated for inspiration and writing. Then one should rest and go to bed, blowing out the lamp and snuff the candle. It is not good to force oneself to get out of bed, because one is not sober or able to think clearly. It is suggestive to bring the writing brush and ink along on leisure outings so that when one hits upon an idea it is jotted down immediately. If the writing brush and ink are not available on the trip thoughts may be left unrecorded or scribbled. When the boat is down the river, one should lie down and sleep. A good sleep invigorates one and fills him with imagination and inspiration for a point of departure of writing. It is highly recommended to discharge oneself of all duties and concentrate on waiting for sparks of thought.” In this description, Henjō-kongō gave a detailed account for the stimulation of Xing. He adopted the viewpoint of the scholars of the Six Dynasties about Xing and emphasized its role of the object providing impetus for poetic expression. But he also placed importance on riding on the wave of Xing and following a natural course. He took a balanced biological

4  XING AND ITS ARTISTIC VIGOR 

81

and psychological stance in expounding that the moment in which one was tired was not the proper time to start composing due to an absence of the mental state of getting stimulated. Poets should carry the writing brush and ink so that an instantaneous occurrence of inspiration could be grabbed and put down on paper. His words, in comparison with those of the Six Dynasties, represent the Tang Dynasty critics’ more accurate accounts for the nature of Xing and indicate a more mature grip on the laws of Xing in the creation of poetry. Since the Tang Dynasty, this viewpoint of “waiting for stimulation” had been well acclaimed by many literary writers and painters. For example, in the Ming Dynasty, Xie Zhen wrote the work Hermit Siming’s Views on Poetry which at one place notes, “Poetry is made on the heavenly occasion, so the poet has to await and seize it to compose the poem.” His words are concise to the point of the Xing’s importance of waiting and chance arresting. In the fields of calligraphy and painting, the Mind and Qing painters also had adopted this view. For instance, Ming painter Shen Zhou, in his Annotations on Selected Works of Calligraphy and Painting, postulated, “Good landscape paintings originate in seeing and reflecting but are completed with applying the painting brush and ink. All hinges on the spur of Xing.” In Hermit Dongzhuang’s Views on Painting, Qing painter Wang Yu said, “Before painting I concentrated on building up a state of readiness, looking up at clouds and streams, watching plants and birds, or burning incense and sipping tea. I waited until I got prompted, exploding with enthusiasm, and then I would pick up my painting brush and paint a picture to my heart’s content. The stimulation hits and then the piece is finished. It must arrive with the heavenly will and beyond mundane manipulation.” Wan Yu addressed the chance painting process in detail, in which the painter needs to put oneself into the mental state of calming down and waiting. When inspiration occurs suddenly, he should seize the opportunity to complete the painting. When it is gone, he needs to wait for another time. This whole process is elaborated with the working of Xing planed in an important place. From the above listed examples, it is clear that intellectuals toward the late periods of the Chinese feudal society put the theory of “standing for stimulated composition” into practice with a substantial awareness of its creative guiding significance. It also indicates an abundance of thoughtful inspiration stored in the property of Xing. In contrast to Fu and Bi, it is by far more psychologically complicated, thanks to its aesthetic grounding.

82  J. YUAN

4.3   Xing and Its Artistic Appreciation In addition to the concept of Bi and Xing, there is a second concept which is “getting stimulated, observing, grouping and grievance.” If the use of Xing is affiliated with the idea of Bi and Xing in light of its creative origin of being spurred by sights, the concept of “getting stimulated, observing, grouping and grievance” is based on the appreciation. As both concepts are of aestheticism, they are tied together. Ancients saw no distinction between them and believed in their blend in harmony. Confucius says, “Why don’t let students read The Book of Songs? Reading it makes one stimulated with thoughts, capable of observing things, keen on the importance of socialization, and able to satirize and remonstrate with the high-ups” (The Analects of Confucius: Yang Huo). Primarily, there are two explanations about Confucius’ idea about the importance of Xing. The first comes with the Southern Song writer Zhu Xi’s view of “getting stimulated for aspiration.” The second is the Western Han writer Kong Anguo’s note of “figurative reference.” These two perspectives are correlated. On the one hand, Confucius thought that one of the basic advantages of Xing stemmed from the appreciation of artistic beauty and was reflected in The Book of Songs as the most first-hand experience of feeling about beauty. It is this attribute of artistic activity that sets itself apart from that of scientific cognition. On the other hand, Zhu Xi stressed that getting prompted for reflection was the first step toward enlightenment, as he said, “Xing means rising. Poetry is basically about emotion, the evil and the virtuous expressed via lucid language. Reading it repeatedly and feeling the rhythm and emotion that it carries moves and delights the reader. The beginner of poetry gains experiences by feeling stirred with poetic accounts of the good and evil and can’t help reading on” (The Analects Variorum). Zhu Xi thought that, although poetry was purposely valuable for its moral refinement, it was expressed through the form of emotional stimulation that left the reader imperceptibly influenced through wide and repeated reading so as to become culturally and educationally immersed. Bai Juyi, in his “Letter to Yuan Zhen,” asserted, “Nothing can be more touching to one’s heart than the initial appeal to feeling, words of narration, and sounds of imitation, and messages of note.” In The Commentaries on The Analects of Confucius, Qing writer Li Gong remarked,

4  XING AND ITS ARTISTIC VIGOR 

83

The Book of Songs is generally for enlightenment. It expresses feeling and thought with Xing, presents analogy with Bi, narrates with Fu, tells anecdotes with odes, promotes norms with folk and court songs, and describes meritorious deeds with hymns and eulogies. Its authors were delighted in making stories known through words. If a short depiction is not satisfactory, the account is expanded. If a lengthy narrative still fails, it is deplorable. The reader is thrilled, inspired and encouraged. All gets started from the practice of Xing, “the rise of poetry from Xing.”

These words show that the value of The Book of Songs is realized through the projection of Xing and other forms so that readers gain aesthetic perception, emotional immersion, inspiration for ambition and moral enhancement. In The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons: Literary Criticism, Liu Xie said, “A writer is stirred with emotion and then expresses himself with the pen. A reader reads the piece and gets involved in the scene. The narrative introduces the message at which it aims, obscure as it may be. It was written long time ago and the reader can only read the author instead of meeting him in person. How profound and hazy is the piece? Probably the reader feels ashamed of his own little learning. Ambition and aspiration can be depicted with the landscape, the feeling conveyed through the lute. With the pen, why shouldn’t one get his thought across transparently? In this sense, understanding is just like seeing. If one can see and distinguish shapes and sizes, nothing can challenge a capable writer in airing his mind.” This statement details the literary written exchange between the creation and reception. With the respect to the creation, Xing results in a release of emotion upon the external spur and finds its way in the script. In terms of the reception, Xing provides the façade of introducing the reader into the narrative and comprehending a significant message. When commenting on “getting stimulated, observing, grouping and grievance,” Wang Fuzhi said, “It originates outside the four emotions but promotes the four emotions; it comes back and forth among the four emotions so the feeling never vanishes. The writer projects his thought into the image, and the reader interprets in his own way” (Desultory Remarks on Poetry from Ginger Studio). According to Wang Fuzhi, Xing embodies the course of observing, while the course of observing embodies Xing. The practice of grouping coexists with grievance, and grievance leads to the practice of grouping …A reader can always be able to appreciate a

84  J. YUAN

work in reading and going through these creative multi-functions, based on his own learning, reading capability, experience and mental state. The values of “getting stimulated, observing, grouping and grievance” shed light on the unique Chinese way of thinking and cultural character. In the perspective of creation, being projected by Xing goes through a sight-to-emotion transition, which is finalized in the script, as described by the late Qing writer Huang Zongxi, “All sight sparked thoughts are analogous and called Xing” (“Preface” to Wang Fuchen’s Poetry). But a reverse process of connoisseurship is true that goes from the inside to the outside. Creation and appreciation represent two different directions of mental activity in terms of understanding Xing. Thanks to the unique feature that they have in common, they are functionally interchangeable and viewed equally significant. In The Psychology of Arts, Mr. Zhu Guangqian discussed the common feature of aesthetics shared by the response to nature and the reflection on arts: “The ten thousand things are periodically sighted, and the four seasons provoke thoughts to viewers.” If you are free you can always bump into things and turn the static scenery into a pleasurable object to the eye and the mind: bamboo woods, rushing sounds of the wind in pines, bees buzzing, birds twittering, boundless deserts, uncertain thunders, lightning, winds and rains, and even dilapidated walls and desolate houses. Such experience is not limited to interactions with nature, and one can also find something delightful in daily work. Sometimes you are engaged in your business but occasionally take time off your chores leafing through picture scrolls by famous painters, or aimlessly taking out a selection of poems, a novel and a play from a pile of books at the desk for a break from work. You are instantaneously led into the world of the author. It seems as if you were with Wang Wei enjoying “When I put down my brush pen I suddenly found the birds stop twittering and the ground scattered with fallen petals.” …Those experiences are gained accidentally or creatively and, though various in type, are all of aesthetics.

These words show the aesthetic perception of interrelationship between the natural and creative forms of Xing. They also provide an expansion to the definition made by the Song writer Cheng Hao. Admittedly, the two forms primarily differ from each other, in that its artistic variation of appreciation generally focuses on a psychological understanding and appears more complicated and visually enduring than the natural response to the realities (including both the natural world and human society).

4  XING AND ITS ARTISTIC VIGOR 

85

4.4   Xing and Its Components In history, the evolution of Xing has been also involved in merging with other concepts that have generated a few profound ideas, enriching its original meaning. For us, these ideas throw light on its generating potential and derivatives. 4.4.1   Sparks of Interest “Sparks of Interest” is an important derivative of Xing. Xing is practiced in a free mental state. Due to this unrestrained feature, it ultimately leads to the taste-oriented appreciation, and as a result, “sparks of interest” becomes part of Xing’s established category. “Sparks of Interest,” an idea combining life experience and artistic appreciation, emerged in its rudimentary shape in the Six Dynasties. In the Wei and Jin dynasties, the dismissal of feudal ethics and worldly views and the advocacy of innocence and uninhibited boldness prevailed, and the practice of Xing appeared to become trendy in the field of aesthetics. The author of The History of the Jin Dynasty: Biography of Ji Kang described Ji Kang as “good at reasoning as well as composing pieces, with lofty ideals and broad ranges of interest that are awe-inspiring and ever-lasting.” Here, it is a clear indication that Ji Kang fulfilled his life goals in simple living and the career of writing. During the time of the Wei and Jin dynasties, it became a popular practice to cultivate one’s “sparks of interest” as a valuable trait. For instance, in The History of the Jin Dynasty: Biography of Xiang Xiu, Xiang Xiu was quoted as “nurturing eccentric interest and soaring to great heights.” This so-called “eccentric interest” was a kind of “sparks of interest,” different from conventions, and became a popular way of living among scholars of the Wei and Jin times. In The History of the Southern Dynasties: Biography of Wang Sengqian, Wang Sengqian is described as taking pleasure in calligraphy and “pursuing a wide of interest as passionate as ever.” The History of the Song Dynasty: Biography of Hu Fan claimed: “Huan Xuan had wide-spread interests.” Also Tao Yuanming comments about himself in “Returning to the Fields,” “Every day I tend my garden and find great joys.” He is saying that he is delighted in tilling his own plot. In his Canglang’s Criticism of Poetry: The Arts of Poetry, Yan Yu remarked, “Composing a poem requires unique skills which are not acquired through reading. It also requires individual interest which

86  J. YUAN

is different from the reasoning power. Therefore it is untrue that the more one reads and becomes critical in thinking the better poems one produces. A well written poem should be free of rationale and rhetoric adornment. Poetry is about emotion. Great masters of poetry of the prime Tang period all wrote on sparks of interest with no trace of logic as the antelope hanging itself upside down on the tree. It is crystal clear and delicate, not man-made at all, like an echo in the void, the color in a form, the moon reflected in water, and an image in a mirror. The words come to an end but the meaning is inexhaustible.” Yan Yu believed that writing poems was a different type of activity from writing critical treatises and stating reasons. It calls for “a particular talent and interest” and needs another kind of creation and ability as defined above, “Poetry is about emotion.” In authoring Canglang’s Criticism of Poetry, he drew lessons from the Song poets’ showing off learning and delivering irresponsible lengthy comments and advocated the restoring of the tradition of the prime Tang poetry, which features “great Tang poets’ writing on ‘sparks of interests’” and carrying on the convention of “songs and poems for emotion” in relating to personal interest so as to uphold the creative vigor of the Six Dynasties. From Yan Yun’s statement, we learn at least a couple of points on “sparks of interest”: first, the impulse caused by the external object; second, the refinement on this impulse to acquire a practice of artistic appreciation, that is, experiences of joy; third, the grounding of this outside stimulation and personal interest in a long-term cultural cultivation and a realization of sorrow, which thereby comes naturally without imposed rhetorical preach but delivers on a message, rich in meaning and terse of expression for its sublime narrative and unparalleled charm. In terms of the mutual dependence between the creative motive and the created mood, the literary state should be predicated on “sparks of interest” and counts on the source of stimulation. Therefore, Yan Yu viewed “sparks of interest” and “provoked thought” on a par, but actually they fall into the same domain, because the subjective “provoked thought” is the prerequisite to the produced poetic state (that is to say, the state in which words come to an end, but the meaning is inexhaustible). Yan Yu postulated, “Poetry conveys rhetoric, reason and provoked thought. Poets of the Southern dynasties are good at ornate diction but weak at reasoning. My contemporaries are adept at reasoning but lack motivation for provoked thought. The Tang poets are remarkable for their provoked thoughts which embody the reasoning power in the same breath.

4  XING AND ITS ARTISTIC VIGOR 

87

The production from the Wei and Han times carries all of them, diction, reason and provoked thought, in it without affected effects” (Canglang’s Criticism of Poetry: A Critical Approach to Poetry). Yan Yu thought that poetry contained three basic elements, including “rhetoric,” “reason” and “provoked thought.” According to him, “Provoked thought,” different from the former two, fell into the category of emotion and temperament and, like “sparks of interest,” constituted the primary proportion of the poet’s emotion and reflection. He believed that poets of the Southern Dynasties had laid emphasis on choices of words but overlook the content; poets of the Song Dynasty were interested in “reasoning” but neglect “provoked thought”; only poets of the Tang Dynasty were favorably assessed for their “provoked thought” that implicitly reveal “reasoning.” Like Canglang’s Criticism of Poetry: The Arts of Poetry, this view resounds the praises of the Tang poets’ “having all eyes on sparks of interest” and incorporating reason and learning into the freedom of being stimulated with no trace of affectation. Unquestionably, “provoked thought” is accepted on the part of the production while “sparks of interest” on the part of the poet’s initiative effort. But they are actually of the same kind. The idea of “sparks of interest” emphasizes the primary mental state, in which poets get started on extrinsic objects and compose works. It sets the poetic production apart from that of artistic appreciation and practical writing. Despite the continued change in Chinese poetic forms through the ancient history, the way that poems were written upon “sparks of interest” has been kept constant, in testimony to the distinct emotion-featured Chinese ancient poetry. During the Ming Dynasty, Yuan Hongdao, a leading scholar of the movement of ideological liberation, came up with the concept of “tastes.” This idea of Yuan’s differs from that held by scholars like Yan Yu, in that he drew on the idea of “natural tastes” of Chan Buddhism, stressing the poet’s immediate interest and taste that is different from the induced feeling and reflection. In his Tales of Hobbies, he said, “All works stem from one’s hobby; the hobby rises from one’s interest; if the interest is not strong, one can express his taste; if he lacks taste he can count on stimulation in writing. None of these is innate.” In his On Monk Ji Dian’s Poems on the Western Lake, he put forward, “Ji Dian wrote as he pleased; without the input of Chan Buddhism his poem could not have been so remarkable. Today’s lesser poets are interested in emulating Tang poetry’s greatness. But they only find their own works loaded

88  J. YUAN

with all kinds of junk. On the contrary they deride the Song works as clumsy attempts to produce anything.” Yuan Hongdao’s “tastes” is particularly associated with individual perceptions and joys and distinguished from mundane tastes. Thanks to the link of this feature with the personal mental experience, his idea was popularized among scholars of independent consciousness. Similarly, in the Ming Dynasty, Tang Xianzu presents his critical point, “Poetry shows the connection between natural ties and Chan illuminations and the union between tastes and inner feelings; Chan illuminations are beyond human limits and inner feelings are unspeakable. They are faintly felt as they loom through narrative accounts. Only those with a tight grip on this gist can produce works of the caliber of The Book of Songs” (“Preface” to A Rulanyi Collection). He used the idea of Chan about “natural tastes” to show the fundamentals of poetry and also the personal acquisition of illumination and comprehension to show writing poems as a mental fulfillment. This idea of aesthetics represents a passionate intellectual quest for individual freedom of expression upheld by the Ming romanticists in opposition to the mundane world. Yuan Mei of the Qing Dynasty also embraced it by saying, “Show fresh senses of taste and genuine interest. Succeed in cultivating them before writing poems” (Suiyuan Poetry: vol. 1). Drawing on the focusing on humans’ tastes as the requirement for successful poems, Yuan Mei thought that poetry was closely tied with human inborn disposition and a good poem was predicted on its transparent presentation as he remarked, “Poetry reveals the poet’s inclination. He only needs to express his personal feeling well to achieve desired results, dazzling colors, agreeable tastes and pleasant sounds” (Supplementary Book 1 to Suiyuan Poetry). Yuan Mei believed that poetry should bring one the scenery pleasing to the eye and the mind and immeasurable delight. But the presupposition is the genuine taste that one has. His study of poetry takes the idea of “sparks of interest” further in the direction of subjectivity. 4.4.2   Sparks of Excitement “Sparks of excitement” means the mental state in which one obtains strong feelings of enthusiasm and eagerness and thoughts surging up at the moment of the subjective agent meeting with the object. Sometimes, it also refers to inspiration. In the Wei, Jin and Southern and Northern dynasties, it is periodically called “provoked excitement.” For example,

4  XING AND ITS ARTISTIC VIGOR 

89

in The History of the Song of the Southern Dynasties: Biography of Xie Lingyun, Shen Yue observed, “Lingyun wrote master pieces with sparks of excitement.” In Selections of Refined Literature, Li Shan annotated about “sparks of excitement”, “It is stimulated excitement.” Here, the “master pieces with sparks of excitement” refers to the writing of Xie Lingyun who gave way to his emotional expression upon the spur of thought and took advantage of instants of inspiration to turn out good poems. For example, it is said that his “The Spring Grass Growing on the Pond” was completed at his time of “sparks of excitement.” Yan Zhitui, in Admonitions for the Yan Clan: Rules of Writing, said, “A piece is built on sparks of excitement and being spurred to demonstrate temperament.” He believed that “sparks of excitement” was meant for a mental state of creation in which the writer often felt thrilled and seized with surges of thought. This is a different type of psychological phenomenon from that of sober-minded reasoning and indicates its feature impervious to reason. The Qi and Liang literary writer Xiao Zixian, in The History of Qi and the Southern Dynasties: Literature, claims, A literary work is like the weathercock of emotion and the bamboo pitchpipes of thought. Wielding his writing brush and racking his brains, the writer writes characters on the paper, displaying the spirit, all created on his disposition and inclination, enlightened by supernatural forces and prompted to a myriad of reflections. …The way of writing relies on sudden enlightenment, shapeless forms and infinite changes. The product resounds with the notes of the five-tone scale but appears awe-inspiring; it depicts ten thousand things of the creation but looks breathtaking on paper. It is the model of poetry and elegant in style; it is unique and different from other forms of writing.

Xiao Zixian believed that the literary creation grew out of the author’s disposition and divine intervention, and “disposition” was the inherent quality, but “super natural enlightenment” was the sole psychological phenomenon of literary creation, that is, the inspiration. Its characteristic is the intrinsic meditation and supernatural touch. The “sparks of excitement” emphasizes the non-utilitarianism of the literary writing different from practical writings. Northern Song writer Su Xun saw the natural wonder as the prerequisite for the marvelous literary achievement: “Why are the wind and water portrayed in a piece? They are not scheduled to meet with each other in the writing. The writing naturally takes shape

90  J. YUAN

with them. Its completion is not for the water, nor is it for the wind. The wind and water are not outlined to be in the writing. But their interaction steals into the writing. That makes the master pieces of all kinds” (“Changing the Courtesy Name for My Second Elder Brother”). Su Xun and Su Shi both view the remarkable encounter between the subjective and objective agents as the foundation of all good writings. Therefore, it is apparent that “sparks of excitement” rely on the wonderful unexpected meeting. The so-called “natural sparks of excitement” are meant for the rejection of artificial attempts at writing literary works. Certainly, the point of departure varies from critic to critic on this poetic creation. Yan Yu laid stress on “sparks of interest” and acclaimed the intent for natural sparks of excitement. When affirming the prime Tang poets’ “having all eyes on sparks of interest” for their works’ ingenious, transparent and artificiality-free quality, he actually confirmed his advocacy of the idea of “sparks of excitement.” In the Qing Dynasty, when Wang Shizhen discussed on poetry in his turn, he presented his major argument of “sparks of excitement and supernatural enlightenment.” This idea of his points to the sensuous pleasure that the poet feels in viewing and reflecting on the beautiful landscape. He upheld the viewpoint of Sikong Tu and Yan Yu, but missed their focus on sorrow and frustration, thus resulting in his concept entirely unreal. In his Chibei Tales from Daijingtang Study of Poetry, he pointed out, “Most ancient poets and painters counted on sparks of excitement and supernatural enlightenment for inspirational input” and “they all believed in the stimulation-triggered extraordinary effect of the supernatural.” Obviously, the weakness of this idea overemphasizes the importance of the supernatural forces. Certainly, Wang also held the harmony of “sparks and excitement and supernatural enlightenment” and the solid grounding of knowledge. He said, “Poetry composition is based on knowledge and stimulation and they fall into the two different categories. On the one hand the image in a mirror, moon reflected in water, and color in a form, all indicate no trace of logic as the antelope hanging itself upside down on the tree. This is what we call sparks of excitement. On the other hand, the Odes and The Folk and Court Songs brought poetry into being and The Lament of Chou and The Han Poetry of the Music Bureau took it further down the road of development, drawing on the Nine Classics, Three Histories, and various schools of thought, to bring it up to its apex of growth. All of this benefits from its roots of erudition. The roots provide its footing of learning, while

4  XING AND ITS ARTISTIC VIGOR 

91

the sparks of excitement enrich it with free emotional expression. Poets ride high on a blend of both, adorning it with the vigor of style, masters’ touches and elegant diction, so as to produce works mixing both the highbrow and lowbrow tastes strewn with words of inimitable wit that stick out for their unique styles” (Daijingtang Study of Poetry: vol. 3 Yuyan Commentary). Wang Shizhen thinks that poetry is composed of two styles, one full of the learning about The Books of Songs, The Lament, and The Han Poetry of the Music Bureau, etc. and the other filled with “sparks of excitement and supernatural enlightenment” with the appeal of supernatural forces. Of course, they are not necessarily in conflict. Instead, they can be compatible to give an outstanding shape with one’s own unique style and remarkable rhetoric. But at heart, Wang Shizhen firmly stuck to the mental state of “sparks of excitement and supernatural enlightenment” and chance inspiration. In his Yuyang Talks of Poetry, he observes, “Xiao Zixian said, ‘I ascended a height to enjoy a distant view and strolled along the lake to see the sunset. Whenever seeing the morning clouds fly with the solitary wild duck and the trees bloom and leaves fall, I feel a rush of emotion, irresistible, but I let it take its own course, unwilling to manipulate it.’ Wang Shiyuan, in Preface to the Poem by Meng Haoran, said, ‘Whenever in writing a poem I just wait for the sparks of excitement to arrive.’ In all my life I have believed it is true so that I have never tried to add any touches of my own nor have I tried to have it rhymed.” Wang Shizhen thought highly of Xiao Zixian’s perspective of “sparks of excitement and supernatural enlightenment” and reveals his own writing process of following the route of “sparks of excitement” and dislike of affectation. He admired those poems depicting rural scenery and recluse life. However, his outlook differs from Sikong Tu’s “being calm and having a broad vision,” in that the latter emphasizes the mental state of stillness and taking a distant view in an effort to dispel his frustration. But Wang Shizhen’s idea is related to the given cultural background at the beginning of the Qing Dynasty. At the time of the Kangxi Emperor’s reign, scholars of the Han nationality found it hard to accept the rule of the Qing due to the traumatic scars left from the large-scale social turmoil. Therefore, the creative production of “sparks of excitement and enlightenment” found its way to people’s expectation for freeing themselves of the reality and diverted their attention to the poetic world of imagination and unreality. In fact, the aesthetic idea of “sparks of excitement and supernatural enlightenment” does offer a gateway to a mirage of the reality.

92  J. YUAN

If the writing of poems is seen as a process of psychological activity based on “sparks excitement” similar to inspiration, such creative skill is more used in painting and calligraphy. Painting and calligraphy are the arts that do not count on written characters so “sparks of excitement,” are more sense-oriented and emotionally impacting, and more applicable. The Tang critic of calligraphy Zhang Huaiguan said, when commenting on Wang Xianzhi’s works, “He chose to read and write independently and never submitted himself to writing at the requests from government bigwigs. Occasionally he was enlightened by sparks of excitement and jumped at the chance. All his works rolled out of his own will instead of yielding to extrinsic pressure” (Appraisals of Calligraphy: The Sublime). This description not only praises Wang Xianzhi’s spirit of independence and unyielding character but also his unique spark-relying style of creation. In the Song Dynasty, Guo Ruoxu presented the anecdote of painting on the spur of stimulation by Jing Huan, a painter of the Five dynasties: Jing Huan and Ouyang Jiong, a scholar of the Imperial Academy, were close friends. One day they rode their horses and ventured to The Temple of Yingtian. Seeing the painting of the heavenly king on the left side of the wall by Sun Wei, Jing Huan got excited and painted the picture of another heavenly king on the right side of the wall, creating a perfect pair of the master pieces and immediately gaining great fame. (The History of Painting, vol. 6)

Here, the words of “got excited” mean “sparks of excitement.” Critics of the past were generally interested in the creative role of “sparks of excitement.” In the fields of calligraphy and painting, the idea of “sparks of excitement” were more readily accepted due to its lack of didactic purposes. 4.4.3   Sparks of Image “Sparks of Image” is an important concept of ancient Chinese poetry and an extension of Xing. If “sparks of interest” emphasizes the qualities of freedom, liveliness, vigorousness and cleverness on the part of the creator, “sparks of image” is an artistic form created under this mental state. However, this form of poetry is different from the generic one. Instead, it is an invisible poetic image formulated with sparks of interest and in a transcending literary mood.

4  XING AND ITS ARTISTIC VIGOR 

93

As an aesthetic term, “sparks of image” came into being in the study of poetry of the Tang Dynasty, but this did not appear by accident. The development of ancient Chinese poetry culminated in the Tang Dynasty. Not only were great contributions made at this time, established poets and master pieces produced, but the theoretic study of poetic images and forms was deepened. In A Collection of Prime Tang Poems, the Tang writer Yin Fan introduced “sparks of image” for the first time in a poetic commentary. For example, he lashed out at the styles of the Qi and Liang dynasties: “They criticized ancient poets for lack of the harmony of the four tones and poetic rhymes but emphasis on simplicity, which should not be models for emulation. As a result they themselves went to the other extreme with deliberate phrasing, unsatisfactory reasoning, wordiness, absence of sparks of image, and giddy and gorgeous diction.” Yin Fan pointed the finger to the literary reformers of the Qi and Liang such as Shen Yue for their attack on ancient poems in terms of the temperament and choices of words and ignoring of the early simple and unadorned style. In contrast, their own productions are fraught with the lifeless content and absence of creative images except for grandiloquent expression. In writing his A Collection of Prime Tang Poems, Yin Fan started to notice the achievements of those poets such as Chang Jian, Wang Wei, Gao Shi and Wang Changling and highly appraised their prominent contribution of “sparks of image” to poetry. Since Yin Fan’s first commentary of “sparks of image” in A Collection of Prime Tang Poems, this concept had been often mentioned in criticism, particularly seen in the study of the Ming Dynasty. In Canglang’s Criticism of Poetry, the Southern Song writer Yan Yu established the aesthetic guideline with the ideas of “sparks of interest” and “thought provoking” that promoted the Tang style and denounced the Song style. Later in the Ming times, many critics followed in Yan Yu’s footsteps and used “sparks of image and graceful charms” in their writing. For example, Hu Yinglin, in his An In-Depth Exploration of Poetry, suggested, “A poem is structured on two things, its form and rhyme and its image and charm. The form and rhyme are self-evident, but the image and charm are indefinite and depending on the reading. …For example, in ‘the flower image in a mirror and the moon reflected in water,’ the form and rhyme are embodied in the ‘water’ and ‘mirror’, while the image and charm are created in the ‘flower’ and ‘moon’.” Hu Yinglin clearly defined the two poetic elements, the internal constituent of “sparks of image” and the external constituent of the form and rhyme. In his

94  J. YUAN

commentary of Tang poems, he went further to illustrate their great contributions from various time periods with respect to the use of “sparks of image” by saying, “Of the pentameter verse composed at the beginning of the Tang Dynasty, only Wang Bo’s lines, such as ‘One distance after another I am seeing you off, and the city wall of Chan’an is nestled in the Shaanxi flatlands,’ show the poem completely transcends its scenic depiction to project a provoked far-reaching image, bold and vigorous, and graphic but superbly appealing” (An In-Depth Exploration of Poetry: The Ancient and Current Styles, vol. 4), and “The prime Tang poems of four lines are strewn with pearls of sparks of image, the meaning profound and the expression free of craftsmanship. But the works of the mid Tang Dynasty started to show the erosion of style, and when in the late Tang time a complete decay cut the creation to its bone. Are they in parallel?” (In-Depth Exploration of Poetry: The Ancient and Current Styles, vol. 6) Hu Yinglin argued that Wang Wei’s pentameter poems, at the start of the Tang period, stood out among others, full of vivid and vigorous sparks of image, though this genre of creation was not quiet mature by that time. Then came the prime and late Tang eras. He highly praised the prime Tang poems for their dexterous use of sparks of image and discarding of artificial effort and criticizes the middle and late Tang poems for their weakened control of the image and charm and blatant affectation. At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, Go Bing discussed the “sparks of image” in his A Collection of Five-and-Seven Character Tang Poems and believed that the prime Tang poems best represented the style of “sparks of image,” but the periods that succeeded witnessed “the production with accepted forms and rhymes but few works with genuine sparks of image” (“Preface” to A Comprehensive Collection of Tang Poems). In the Qing Dynasty, Fang Dongshu also mentioned “sparks of image” in his The Five-Character Poems in speaking of the poems of the Six Dynasties: “The revered Master Xie (Lingyun) presented his poems of the rural idyll and landscape in expressing his ideals. They are elegant, pleasing to the eye and the mind, even though similar to the pieces by other poets. But they reach far with his keen intellect, broad vision, awe-inspiring bearing, exquisite diction and unique use of sparks of image which are second to none.” Fang Dongshu thinks that Xie Lingyun wrote his poetic pastorals that appear similar in narration to works by others, but they were unparalleled for their effects of sparks of image and delicate craftsmanship. Fang Dongshu ranks the idea of “sparks of image” in the same status as that of the conception and

4  XING AND ITS ARTISTIC VIGOR 

95

rhetoric and this poetic attainment should be learned from the ancients as he contended, “A good depiction of the scenery background, adroit use of sparks of image and remarkable verses, they cannot be obtained without a deep understanding of the ancient poets” (The Five-Character Poems, vol. 1). His emphasis on “sparks of image” carries a different meaning from the term’s general use, in that he sees its attribute of creating without signs of execution and message implying. In The FiveCharacter Poems, he claimed that Wang Wei had best represented the charm of this poetic mood, “Wang Mojie wrote poems in the town of Wangchuan and gained the reputation of a great master. A comparison of him with great Du Fu is just equivalent to the comparison between Vimalakirti and Tathagata, Lord Buddha. He does indeed have one outstanding style of his own in that his works were valuable and unmatched in the years to come for his superb application of sparks of image, air of vitality, elegant and penetrating wording, sublime vivid and melodious description, and freedom of the worldly interest.” Fang Dongshu applauded Wang Wei’s poem, written in Wangchuan for its distinction of impressive sparks of image, which is distinct from Du Fu’s art of gloom and noticeable rhythm. The poignant effect of sparks of image is created with the perceiver’s proper control of the time and location, ingenious response to spurs of sight and freedom of mundane restraints. Some Ming critics of poetry point out that the feature of “sparks of image,” reflected in the Tang poems, is worth noticing in literary study instead of treading the old path in new shoes. The idea of “sparks of image” is an integrated concept and viewed in light of the congruence between the creator’s disposition and the external image. But a few scholars see them in two separate ways. For example, Bai Juyi has the lines in his poem “A Spring Tour to the Qiantang Lake”: The Temple of Gushan is to the north, the Pavilion of Jiating west, The water’s surface now is placid, the clouds low. Some early orioles are sporting in warm trees, At the roof of one house new swallows are pecking at spring mud. Various flowers have bloomed to delight my eyes; Low grass is able now to cover the hooves of horses. I love strolling along the east of the lake, never to be bored here In the shade of green willows on the White Sand Jetty.

96  J. YUAN

On those lines, Fang Dongshu presented his comments, “The best part lies in the images created and reflections following. It is lively with the poet’s commentary and not stagnant” (The Five-Character Poems). He considered this piece of Bai Juyi’s as strong at the far-sighted vision and elegant bearing upon the portrayal of the West Lake in the spring. The poem depicts the poet’s riding on the horse on a spring outing, delighted and enjoying the sights that brought thoughts to the mind. It is with this exhilarating feeling that the poet portrayed the vigorous, balmy days of the spring, the lake shores, blooming willows, sporting orioles, blue ripples, and beautiful clouds. From another angle, a scenery description cannot be well composed without a perfect complement of thoughts on stimulation. In his Overview of Literary Theories: Comments on Fu, the Qing writer Liu Xizai had his critical remarks: “The grass and trees grow up in the spring and mountain peaks are shrouded in clouds and mist. Those are all created by the power of Heaven and Earth beyond human craftsmanship. Therefore, writing a narrative of Fu about them should be concentrated on provoked thoughts relating to the scene. For a depiction of a scenic spot without reflections about it, shouldn’t a reader feel bored for all its banal implication, despite its rhetoric embellishment?” Liu Xizai stressed that the significance of “sparks of image,” as a literary skill, resided in the poet’s initiative and contribution. If the implied message is shallow and trite, the poem may be full of detailed narratives of landscape but is still lack of vigor and cannot become an intriguing piece. In the canon of Fu, from the Han Dynasty, quite a few works were not well accepted and the reason was that they pale in comparison for lack of the message provoking vigor and the absence of disposition. Those writers spend efforts and space on the external landscape portrayal and, as a result, fail to produce ace pieces with an assured command of sparks of image. From the above-mentioned critical views, the creation of “sparks of image” closely related to poets’ literary training and refined temperament. In his Canglang’s Criticism of Poetry, Yan Yu pointed out, “The prime Tang poets spared no effort in creating conditions for “sparks of interest” and leaving no sign of affectation. Therefore their production is extraordinary for artistic charm and exquisiteness, not something that can be outlined and designed.” His words emphasizes that “sparks of interest” is the basis of “sparks of image” for creating first-class works, as represented by the prime Tang poets for their unique personal interests that produce the intriguing, non-artificial effects of sparks of image in their poetry.

4  XING AND ITS ARTISTIC VIGOR 

97

Notes 1.  See Grosse, Ernst. The Beginning of Arts. Trans. Cai Muhui. Beijing: Commercial Press, 1984, p. 266. 2.  See Wang, Kefen. A History of Chinese Choreography. Shanghai, China: Shanghai People’s Press, 1989, pp. 6–9. 3.  See Li, Zehou. The Arts of Chinese Aesthetics. Beijing, China: Cultural Relics Press, 1981, p. 12.

Bibliography

Aisin Gioro, Hongli, ed. An Anthology of Chinese Literature: Selected Tang and Song Poems. Beijing: Chinese Literature Press, 2000. Bai, Juyi. A Collection of Bai Juyi’s Poems. Ed. Jincheng Zhu. Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company, 1998. Chen, Qiyuan. A Study of Mao’s Version of “The Book of Songs”. Jinan, China: Shandong Friendship Press, 1991. Chen, Tingzhuo. Remarks on Lyrics from White Rain Studio. Shanghai: Shanghai Guji Press, 2009. Chen, Zi’ang. A Collection of Chen Zi’ang’s Works. Ed. Xupeng. Shanghai: Shanghai Guji Press, 2013. Cheng, Junying, and Jiang Jianyuan, ed. The Book of Songs. Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company, 1999. Cheng, Shude, comp. The Analects. Ed. Cheng Junying and Jiang Jianyuan. Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company, 1990. Ding, Fubao, comp. A Sequel to Remarks on Chinese Poetry. Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company, 1983. Dong, Hao, comp. The Complete Works of the Tang Dynasty. Beijing: Beijing Book Company, 1983. Du, Fu. Annotations on the Works of Du Fu. Ed. Xie Xiwei. Shanghai: Shanghai Guji Press, 2016. Fang, Dongshu. Zhaomeizhanyan’s Criticism of Poetry. Ed. Wang Shaoying. Beijing: People’s Literature Publishing House, 1961. Fang, Xuanling, et al., ed. The History of the Jin Dynasty. Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company, 1997. © Foreign Language Teaching and Research Publishing Co., Ltd. This international edition is exclusively licensed to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. for worldwide distribution outside of China 2019 J. Yuan, Redefining Chinese Literature and Art, Key Concepts in Chinese Thought and Culture, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-3555-6

99

100  Bibliography Fu, Xuancong, comp. A Collection of the Tang Poems. Xi’an, China: Shaanxi People’s Education Press, 1996. Gao, Bing, comp. A Collection of the Tang Poems. Shanghai: Shanghai Guji Press, 1982. Grosse, Ernst. The Beginnings of Art. Trans. Cai Muhui. Beijing: The Commercial Press, 1984. Gu, Ban. The History of the Han Dynasty. Ed. Yan Shigu. Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company, 2000. Guo, Moruo. Inscriptions on Oracle Bones. Beijing: Science Press, 1983. Guo, Ruoxu. A History of Chinese Paintings. Ed. Huang Miaozi. Beijing: People’s Fine Arts Publishing House, 1963. Guo, Shaoyu, comp. An Anthology of Works of Chinese Literary Criticism. Shanghai: Shanghai Guji Press, 2006. He, Wenhuan, comp. Remarks on Chinese Poetry. Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company, 1981. Henjō-kongō. A Collection of Treatises on Poetry from the Northern, Southern and Tang Dynasties. Ed. Lu Shengjiang. Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company, 2015. Hu, Yinglin. The Arts of Chinese Poetry. Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company, 1962. Huang, Zongxi. The Complete Works of Huang Zongxi. Ed. Shen Shanhong and Wu Guang. Hangzhou, China: Zhejiang Guji Press, 2012. Jia, Dao. Annotations on Jia Dao’s Works. Ed. Qi Wenbang. Beijing: People’s Literature Publishing House, 2001. Jiao, Ran. Annotations on Chinese Poetic Styles. Ed. Li Zhuangying. Beijing: People’s Literature Publishing House, 2003. Jiao, Xun. The Complete Works of Jiao Xun. Ed. Liu Jianzhen. Yangzhou, China: Guangling Book Press, 2016. Kuang, Zhouyi and Wang Guowei. Huifeng’s Views on Chinese Ci Poetry and A Study of Ancient Chinese Literature. Ed. Wang Youan. Beijing: People’s Literature Publishing House, 1960. Li, Bai. The Complete Works of Li Bai. Ed. Wang Qi. Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company, 2015. Sciences Academic Press, 2010. Li, Gong. Li Gong’s Version of The Analects of Confucius, Li Gong’s Version of “The Great Learning”, Li Gong’s Version of The Doctrine of the Mean, and Supplement to Li Gong’s Version of “The Analects of Confucius”. Jinan, China: Qilu Press, 1997. Li, Yanshou. The History of the Southern Dynasties. Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company, 1975. Li, Zehou. The Arts of Chinese Aesthetics. Beijing: Cultural Relics Press, 1981. Li, Zhi. The Complete Works of Li Zhi. Ed. by Zhang Jianye and Zhang Dai. Beijing: Social Sciences Academic Press, 2010.

Bibliography

  101

———. The Complete Works of Li Zhi. Ed. Zhang Jianye. Beijing: Social Sciences Academic Press, 2010. Liang, Qichao. The Collected Works from the Ice-Drink’s Studio. Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company, 1989. Liu, Qingyi. A New Account of Tales of the World. Ed. Liu Xiaobiao, Yu Jiaxi, and Zhou Zumo. Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company, 2007. Liu, Xie. Annotations on The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons. Ed. Fan Wenlan. Beijing: People’s Literature Publishing House, 1958. Liu, Xizai. Remarks on Chinese Literature. Ed. Wang Qizhong. Guiyang, China: Guizhou People’s Press, 1980. Lu, Zuqian. Lu’s Version of “The Book of Songs”. Beijing: Beijing Library Press, 2003. Ouyang, Xiu. The Complete Works of Ouyang Xiu. Ed. Li Yi’an. Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company, 2001. Qian, Zhonglian, and Ma Yazhong, general editors. The Complete Works of Lu You. Ed. Tu Xiaoma. Hangzhou, China: Zhejiang Education Press, 2011. Ruan, Ji. A Collection of Ruan Ji’s Works. Ed. Chen Bojun. Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company, 1987. Ruan, Yuan, ed. The Thirteen Classics. Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company, 2009. Shen, Yue. The History of the Song of the Southern Dynasties. Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company, 1974. Shen, Zicheng, comp. A Collection of Chinese Ancient Paintings and Works. Beijing: Cultural Relics Press, 1984. Shi, Bing. Critical Remarks on Du Fu’s Poems. Shanghai: Shanghai Bookstore Press, 1988. Su, Xun. The Complete Works of Su Xun. Ed. Zhang Yuxia. Changchun, China: Times Literature and Arts Press, 2001. Suzuki, Torao. A History of Chinese Poetry. Trans. Xu Zong. Nanning, China: Guangxi People’s Press, 1989. Tan, Yuanchun. A Collection of Tan Yuanchun’s Works. Ed. Chen Xingzhen. Shanghai: Shanghai Guji Press, 1998. Tao, Yuanming. A Collection of Tao Yuanming’s Works. Ed. Lu Qinli. Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company, 2018. Waley, Arthur, The Book of Songs: The Ancient Chinese Classic of Poetry, trans. 1st Evergreen ed. New York: Grove Weidenfeld, 1960, p. 85. Wang, Fuzhi. Ch’ing Remarks on Poetry. Ed. Ding Fubao. Shanghai: Shanghai Guji Press, 2015. ———. Desultory Remarks on Poetry from Ginger Studio. Ed. Dai Hongsen. Shanghai: Shanghai Guji Press, 2012. Wang, Kefen. A History of Chinese Choreography. Shanghai: Shanghai People’s Press, 1989. Wang, Shizhen. Comments on the Collection of Poems from Daijingtang Study. Ed. Dai Hongsen. Beijing: People’s Literature Publishing House, 2006.

102  Bibliography ———. Xiangzu’s Literary Notes. Ed. Zhan Zhi. Shanghai: Shanghai Guji Press, 1982. Weng, Fanggang. Shizhou’s Comments on Tang, Song, Jin and Yuan Poems. Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company, 1985. Wu, Dexuan. Jottings from Waxing Moon Tower Studio. Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company, 1991. Xiao, Tong, comp. A Collection of the Six Officials’ Works. Ed. Li Shan, Lu Yanji, and Liu Liang. Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company, 1987. Xiao, Zixian. The History of the Qi of the Southern Dynasties. Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company, 2000. Xie, Zhen, and Wang Fuzhi. Desultory Remarks on Poetry from Four Seas Studio and Desultory Remarks on Poetry from Ginger Studio. Beijing: People’s Literature Publishing House, 2001. Xu, Wei. A Collection of Xu Wei’s Works. Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company, 1983. Yan, Kejun, ed. A Collection of Treatises of the Pre-Qin, Qin, Han, Three Kingdoms and Six Dynasties. Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company, 1958. Yan, Yu. Canglang’s Criticism of Poetry. Ed. Guo Shaoyu. Beijing: People’s Literature Publishing House, 1983. Yan, Zhitui. Admonitions for the Yan Clan. Ed. Wang Liqi. Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company, 1993. Yang, Bojun. Annotations on Liezi’s Works. Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company, 2013. Yang, Shuda. A Collection of Yang Shuda’s Works: Jiwei’s Remarks. Shanghai: Shanghai Guji Press, 2013. Yang, Wangli. A Collection of Yang Wangli’s Works. Ed. Wang Qizhen. Nanchang, China: Jiangxi People’s Press, 2006. Ye, Jiaying. Jialing’s Remarks on Poetry. Rev. ed. Shijiazhuang, China: Hebei Education Press, 1997. Yin, Fan. A Collection of Prime Tang Poems. Beijing: Beijing Library Press, 2003. Yuan, Hongdao. A Collection of Yuan Hongdao’s Works. Ed. Qian Bocheng. Shanghai: Shanghai Guji Press, 1981. Yuan, Mei. Suiyuan Poetry. Ed. Wang Yingzhi. Nanjing, China: Jiangsu Guji Press, 2000. Zhang, Bowei. Commentaries on Poetic Styles of the Tang and Five Dynasties. Nanjing, China: Jiangsu Guji Press, 2002. Zhang, Chao, et al., ed. Zhaodai’s Series. Shanghai: Shanghai Guji Press, 1990. Zhang, Huaiguan. Calligraphy Appraisals. Hangzhou, China: Zhejiang People’s Fine Arts Press, 2012. Zhong, Rong. The Gathered Commentary of The Critique of Poetry. Ed. Cao Xu. Shanghai: Shanghai Guji Press, 1996. Zhu, Guangqian. The Psychology of Arts. Shanghai: Fudan University Press, 2009.

Bibliography

  103

Zhu, Xi. Collected Commentaries on “Chuci”. Ed. Jiang Lifu. Shanghai: Shanghai Guji Press, 2001. ———. Collected Commentaries on the Four Books. Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company, 1983. ———. Studies on The Book of Songs. Ed. Wang Yi and Hong Xingzu. Changsha, China: Yuelu Press, 1989. Zhu, Ziqing. An Analysis of Poems Expressing Ideals: A Study of Fu, Bi and Xing. Shanghai: East China Normal University Press, 1996.

Index

B Bi, 2–4, 7–12, 18–22, 26, 28, 29, 31–33, 35–39, 42, 54–56, 58–60, 62, 64, 69, 71, 76, 77, 81–83 Broad-minded implication, 64–66

M Mei, 7, 9–12, 15, 16, 18, 19, 26, 29, 33, 36–38, 42, 54, 59, 61, 64, 65 Metonymy, 64 Miraculous thought, 76, 77

C Ci, 7, 9–12, 15, 16, 18, 19, 26, 29, 33, 36–38, 42, 54, 59, 61, 64, 65 Ci poems, 65, 66

S School of Temperament, The, 43 Seven feelings, 7 Six Arts, 34, 35, 55 Six Dynasties, 12, 14–19, 26, 27, 29, 32, 33, 36, 42, 50, 57–59, 80, 81, 85, 86, 94 Six forms, 8, 9 Sparks of excitement, 49, 88–92 Sparks of image, 92–96 Sparks of interest, 26, 39, 40, 42, 61, 85–88, 90, 92, 93, 96 Stimulating, observing, socialization and complaining, 44 Stimulation of Xing, 2, 13, 26, 80 Supernatural charm, 26, 32, 49–52

E Enrichment of Xing, 26–29 F Five Medicine Dispenser, 15 Flowery language, 29, 64 Former Seven and Later Seven Masters, 44 Fu, 3, 4, 8–12, 18, 19, 21, 22, 38, 54, 56, 57, 76, 81, 83, 96

© Foreign Language Teaching and Research Publishing Co., Ltd. This international edition is exclusively licensed to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. for worldwide distribution outside of China 2019 J. Yuan, Redefining Chinese Literature and Art, Key Concepts in Chinese Thought and Culture, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-3555-6

105

106  Index V Vigor of style, 29, 37, 51, 91 Voice of Integrity, The, 27–29

X Xing, 1–4, 6–22, 26, 28–33, 35–39, 42–44, 46, 47, 53–69, 71, 73–85, 92