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The Solitary Boat: Images of Self in Chinese Nature Poetry*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2011

Eugene Eoyang
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One critic of Chinese poetry has written, suggestively: “Western readers are sometimes struck by what they do not find …”. One of the most familiar constituents of poetry, particularly of the lyric, that will not be found in much of Chinese nature poetry is an identifiable grammatical subject. It is not uncommon for a translator of Chinese poetry to ask “… who is its subject? I? You? She?” The requirements of the translation into Western languages suggest, of course, that a subject be supplied. Caught between syntactical correctness and the authority of the text, the translator is often forced to opt for fluency in the target language rather than fidelity to the source language. To be sure, this practice is of no great consequence in most instances. But, if we look at two excerpts, one from the Li Sao and the other from the T'ang shih san pai shou, and compare both text and translation, it becomes clear that there will be times when something other than mere linguistic convention is involved.

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The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 32 , Issue 4 , August 1973 , pp. 593 - 621
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Copyright © Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 1973

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References

1Hawkes, David, “Chinese Poetry and the English Reader,” in The Legacy of China, Edited by Dawson, Raymond (London, 1964) p. 114. Professor Hawkes instances “epic and tragedy … or religious themes, or the elevation of love to a central position.”Google Scholar

2Ch'u Tz'n: Songs of the South (Oxford, 1959), p. 22; Ssu pu ts'ung k'an, i/5a–6b; hereafter cited as SPTK.Google Scholar

3The Jade Mountain (New York, 1972), pp. 98–99; Ch'üan T'ang Shih, 6 (I)/3/I2b.Google Scholar

4 The practice of omitting the “I” in Chinese lyric poetry has been discussed in a short notice by Frankel, Hans, “The “I” in Chinese Lyric Poetry,” Oriens 10 (1957), 128–130;Google Scholar by Boodberg, Peter, “Ccdulcs from a Berkeley Workshop in Asiatic Philology,” Ts'ing Hua Journal of Chinese Studies, vol. 7, no. 2 (August 1969), pp. 9, 29–31;Google ScholarChen, S. H., Literature as Light Against Darkness (Pciping, 1948), pp. 27–28.Google Scholar

5 The disputes concerning the historical authenticity of Ch'ü Yüan, and the problems of dating him exactly, do not vitiate the intensely self-directed character of these lines.

6 Ch'u Tz'u, p. 22; SPTK, I/3b–4b.

7 Ibid., p. 24; SPTK, I/II2b–I3b.

8 Ch'u Tz'u, p. 28; SPTK, I/28b–3Oa.

9 Ch'u11 Tz'u, p. 8. Actually, Professor Hawkes is referring to Sao-style poems in general.

10Hightower, James R., The Poetry of T'ao Ch'ien (Oxford, 1970), p. 53; cf. T'ao Yiian-ming shih hui-p'ing (Peking, 1961), p. 48, abbreviated hereafter as Hni p'ing.Google Scholar

11 The Poetry of T'ao Ch'ien, pp. 144–145; cf. Hui p'ing, p. 152.

12Anthology of Chinese Literature, vol. i, Edited by liirch, Cyril (New York, 1965), p. 232.Google Scholar

13Frodsham, J. D., The Murmuring Stream (Kuala Lumpur, 1967), vol.Google Scholar i, p. 126; cf.Hsieh K'ang-lo chi chu, edited by Chieh, Huang (2nd ed., Peking, 1958), p. 43.Google Scholar

14Wai-lim Yip has discussed this point with referencc to translation in Ezra Pound's Cathay (Princeton, 1969), pp. 67–69, and in Hïding in the Universe: Poems by Wang Wei (New York, 1972), pp.Google Scholar v–xv. See also Liu, James J. Y., “Three Worlds in Chinese Poetry,” Journal of Oriental Studies 3 (1956), 288–289,Google Scholar and The Art oj Chinese Poetry (Chicago, 1966), pp. 39–42.Google Scholar

15 Wai-Hm Yip, Hiding in the Universe, p. 125; Ch'üan T'ang Shih, 2(8)/4/7a.

16 Hiding in the Universe, p. 101; Ch'tian T'ang Shih, 2(8)/4/6a.

17 Bynncr (The Jade Mountain, p. 189) over-interprets and restricts the sense with “Shines back to me from the green moss.” Boodberg, Cf., Ts'ing Hua Journal 0f Chinese Studies, vol. 7, no. 2 (August 1969), 3–3.Google Scholar

18 Hiding in the Universe, p. x.

19 Hiding in the Universe, p. 19; Ch'tian T't Shih, 2(8)/3/3a.

20“The ‘I’ in Chinese Lyric Poetry,” Orient 10 (1957). 128.Google Scholar

21 “The implicit “we” is the only solution to the problem in Tu Fu's much disputed poem to Li Po that begins fc. Hung, Cf. William, Tu Fu: China's Greatest Poet (New York, 1952), pp. 37–38,CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Boodberg, Peter, Ts'ing Una Journal of Chinese Studies, vol. 7. no. 2 (August 1969), pp. 33–34.Google Scholar

22 Actually, “guest” may be loo limited: “wanderer” is too aimless and footloose; “exile” too strong; and “sojourner” too formal. The sense is of someone abroad.

23 See Ch'üan T'ang Shih, 3(4)/I6/14b, 10(6)/I/5b, and 3(I)/I/12b–I3a.

24 Ssu-pti pei-yao, 7/iob. Hereafter cited as SPPY.

25The Complete Works of Chuang-tzu (New York, 1968), p.Google Scholar 212. The translation of the first line is misleading, for the phrase fang chott does not refer 10 two hulls “lashed” together, but merely to two boats crossing the river, one alongside the other.

26 The Complete Works of Chuang-tzu, p. 354; SPPY, 10/7b–8a.

27 The Poetry of T'ao Ch'ien, p. 69; Hui p'ing, p. 78.

28 Cf. The Poetry of Too Ch'icn, p. 70.

29 There is also an alternative reading of fan hai: some commentators take it to refer to a mountain (hat rose from the sea, and is now fifty li north of Jui-an, and situated inland; cf. J. D. Frodsharn, The Murmuring Stream, vol. ii, p. 133.

30The Murmuring Stream, vol. i, p. 127; cf. Hsieh K'ang-lo chi chu, edited by Chich, Huang (2nd ed., Peking. 1958), p. 45.Google Scholar

31 Compare, for example, the endings of such poems as “On Going Out of the West Hall of Archery at Dusk”, “On Climbing Stone Drum Mountain, Near Shang-shu,” “Written by the Tomb of the Prince of Lu-ling,” and “While Travelling I Think of the Time I Spent in the Mountains” with the endings of “On Spending Some Time at the Pai-an Pavilion,” “On My Tour of the Fields, I Climb Mount Coiling-island by the Sea,” and “Written on the Lake on My Way Back to the Retreat at Stone Cliff.” Cf. Frodsham, p. 120, Hsich, p. 34: Frodsham, p. 126, Hsieh, p. 43; Frodsham. p. 140, Hsieh, p. 66; Frodsham, p. 153, Hsieh, p. 87; Frodsham, p. 125, Hsieh. p. 41; Frodsham, p. 125; Hsieh, p. 42; Frodsham, p. 138, Hsieh, p. 63.

32 Cf. Shih Chi, 83/I–9a, Frodsham, vol. ii, pp. 105, 133

33 Complete Worlds of Chuang-tzu, pp. 317–318; SPPY, 9/I4b.

34 Chuang-tzu, SPPY, 7/11a. Frodsham (The Murmuring Stream, vol. ii. p. 133) is convinced that the empty bout does not refer to the Chuangtzu passage, even though Hsieh's reference to T'ai-kung Jen occurs almost immediately after the passage on the two boats crossing the river.

35 Complete Works of Chuang-tzu, pp. 213–214; SPPY, 7/IIb.

36“On the House of Hermit Chang”, Chin chia Tu shih (Harvard Sinological Series), 271/14. Cf. William Hung, Tu Fu, p. 37.Google Scholar

37 Hiding in the Universe, p. 33; Ch'üan T'ang Shih, 2(8)/2/I2a.

38 Ch'üan T'ang Shih, 3(3)/2/3b. Unless identified, translation is mine.

39 The best-known example is perhaps Li Po's “Farewell to Mcng Hao-jan” where the third line reads: “A lonely sail, distant shade, extinguished by blue” .

40 Ch'üan T'ang Shih, 3(I)/4/IIa.

41 Ch'üan T'ang Shih, 3(I)/4/IIa-b.

42 Ch'tian T'ang Shih, 6(I)/3/I4a; Boodberg, cf., “Cedules from a Berkeley Workshop in Asiatic Philology,” Ts'ing Hua Journal of Chinese Studies, vol. 7, no. 2 (August 1969), pp. 10–14.Google Scholar

43 Chiu cha chi chn Tu shih, 541/35/4. Cf. William Hung, Tu fu, p. 262, and Hawkes, David, A Littile Primer of Tu Fn (London, 1967), pp 206–200.Google Scholar

44 I am making no evaluative judgment on the qualities of the two poems, but by the comparison merely want to clarify their radically different concerns. And, of course, the Tower does have historical and psychological importance for Tu Fu. Nor am I interested in “abstract” or “concrete” as a value: what these terms elucidate is the relation between the actual scene and the poem. In an “abstract” poem, the “scene” exists but in the mind; in a “concrete” poem, the scene exists in reality, in nature. It should be clear that poems need not be exclusively one or the other.

45 Chin chia chi chit Tu shih, 256/20/13; William Hung, Tu Fu, p. 276.

46 Chin chia, 245/6/3.

47 Chin chia, 467/323/6.

48See Wellek, René and Warren, Austin, Theory of Literature (New York, 1949), p.Google Scholar 15; Hamburger, Käte, Die Logik der Dichtung (Stuttgart, 1957),Google Scholar PP 183ff., and Wellek., René “Genre Theory, the Lyric, and ‘Erlehnis’,” in Festschrift fiir Richard Alewyn (Köln, 1967), pp. 393–400.Google Scholar

49 Ch'iian Sung Tz'ii, p. 156.

50 Wang Kuo-wei has considered this question in his Jen-chicn ta'u-hua, edited by Hsü T'iao-fu (Honjj Kong, 1961). See also, Liu, James J. Y., “Three Worlds of Chinese Poetry,” Journal of Oriental Studies 3 (1956), 28off.Google Scholar

51Yoshikawa, Kojiro, An Introduction to Sung Poetry, translated liy Hurton Watson (Cambridge.Mass., 1967), p. 152; cf. SPPY, 5/15a.Google Scholar

52 Ch'iian Sung TZ'II, p. 931.

53The Prelude, edited by Ernest de Sclincourt; second edition, revised by Darbishire, Helen (Oxford, 1959), pp. 23, 25.Google Scholar

54See Frodsham, J. D., “The Origin of Chinese Nature Poetry,” Asia Major VIII, Pt. I (1960), 68–103,Google Scholar and “Landscape Poetry in China and Europe,” Comparative Literature 19 (1967), 193–215;CrossRefGoogle ScholarMiller, James W., “English Romanticism and Chinese Nature Poetry,” “Comparative Litcratine” 24 (1972), 216–236;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Mather, Richard, “The Landscape Buddhism of the Fifth-Century Poet Hsieh Ling-yün,” Journal of Asian Studies 18 (1958), 67–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

55Lovejoy, Arthur, “On the Chinese Origin of a Romanticism,” first published in the Journal of English and Germanic Philology,” January 1933,Google Scholar revised and expanded in Essays in the History of Ideas (New York, 1960), pp. 99–135:Google ScholarBinyon, Laurence, Landscape in English Art and Poetry (London, 1931):Google ScholarClark, Kenneth, Landscape into Art (London, 1949);Google ScholarNoyes, Russell, Wordsworth and the Art of Lanscape (Bloomington, Ind., 1968).Google Scholar

56Miller, James W., “English Romanticism and Chinese Nature Poetry,” Comparative Literature 24 (1072), 233–234.Google Scholar

57 J. D. Frodsham, The Murmuring Stream, vol. i, p. 100.

58 For a discussion of the subject-object question from :i philosophical point ol view, see Chün-i, T'ang, “The Individual and the World in Chinese Methodology,” in The Status ol the Individual in East and West, edited by Moore, Charles A. (Honolulu, 1968), pp. 101–119.Google Scholar

59 Tu Fu, p. 24; Chin chia, 278/18.