Snapshot: Legendary Emperor Ge Tian 葛天氏

Looks Greek to Me: Ge Tian 葛天 of Changge, Henan Province

Wendy Larson's identification tag (I feel she must work much like I do):


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Snapshot: General Du Yu

General Du Yu 大將軍杜預 (one of Du Fu's 杜甫 ancestors)

Since many of Sima Yan's generals advised against an attack on Wu in 280, Sima hesitated. Eastern Wu seemed strong, led by able and ferocious leaders, and treacherous to approach via the Yang-tze. But General Du Yu persuaded Sima Yan that an attack could be successful. He had a very different estimate of Wu's strength: They will "fall apart like cracked bamboo" 勢如破竹, he said.
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Snapshot: Sima Yan, aka Emperor Wu of the Jin

Sima Yan, conqueror of the Cao clan (晉滅吳之戰), enjoyer of 10,000 concubines.
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Everybody show us your Tao Yuanmings

Swartz, Wendy. Reading Tao Yuanming : shifting paradigms of historical reception (427-1900). Cambridge Mass.: published by the Harvard University Asia Center ;distributed by Harvard University Press, 2008.

"Introduction"

When Swartz presents her motivation for this study, I saw her anticipating many of the questions I had begun to ask myself as I was preparing to teach about Tao Yuanming. I think because I was seeing my own half-formed thoughts fully articulated in this introduction, all I could do was marvel at a few of the juicier passages:

I have to believe that this old gentleman never really died. Even
today he remains awe-inspiring and alive.
— Xin Qiji 辛棄疾 (1140–1207)

Xin Qiji, the Patriot Lyricist (Bio on EpochTimes.com)

What a wonderful epigraph! Such an amazing indication of the rich influence Tao Yuanming has enjoyed over later generations of Chinese intellectuals -- one wonders what range of responses exists: did everybody love Tao as Xin Qiji did? (Oh, and what's up with this guy? Why does the Epochtimes host a creepy agitprop portrait of him? Methink me smells another Wen Tianxiang.) Did Tao have detractors? Did women appreciate the figure (persona, face) of Tao Yuanming as well? This is plainly Swartz's task. She promises a systematic use of reception theory, going back to the writings of Gauss.

Reception ought to be a topic of special centrality in Chinese literary history, in light of the time it spans, the relative stability and continuity of the literary language, and the accessibility of the literary corpus...a study of literary reception in the Chinese tradition must examine literary questions in relation to nonliterary categories, such as history, biography, and morality.

Swartz wisely focuses this broad scope of inquiry almost immediately, promising to examine a "dialogue spanning fifteen hundred years about three categories that lay at the heart of literati culture: reclusion, personality, and poetry." I wonder about the scope one should choose for such a study. Swartz by all account wishes to focus on other Chinese, male, intellectuals. Of course she means to examine famous Tao Yuanming admirers like Su Shi, Liang Qichao, or Lu Xun. But what about women readers? What about the possibility of a popular reception, including representations in modern fiction? I'm not criticizing Swartz at all here, just thinking aloud about different lines of investigation to which we can also apply reception theory. Swartz might be said to have laid the groundwork for future study by beginning with the most general case reasonably handled in a book-length project: "central issues animating premodern Chinese culture as a whole." I'll suspend judgment on this choice of scope for now.

From here, Swartz moves to a beginning: the influence of Tao Yuanming's biography, generally, as it is likely to have been imagined by previous readers:

Tao Yuanming, above all, wrote about himself. There is no extant precedent in Chinese literature for the candor with which Tao Yuanming spoke about his principles, fears, personal fancies, and wants, or for the scrupulous dating and prefatory notes he attached to his works. The strong autobiographical presence in Tao’s writings raises two immediate questions: how much agency has he been granted in determining his own critical reception, and to what extent did his detailed self-characterizations define and constrain later interpretations of him and his works?

To begin answering this question, Swartz presents a conclusion that I had just hit upon myself in the previous few days, though I had not said it so clearly:

The core of Tao’s autobiographical project lies somewhere between earnestness and playfulness, the latter implying a recognition of both the boundaries of autobiographical writing and the intention to push them.

This is a really nice statement of the central issue here. What's at stake is nothing less than the definitions of history and literature, and the frought question of distinguishing them. The nature of truth also comes up here -- we have historical truths, psychological truths, and maybe others as well -- poetic, artistic truths? The question of Tao Qian's significance in the development of Chinese political thought, in the basic ideology of Chinese intellectuals as informed through great works of literature, begins to emerge.

Reception as Mechanism; as Process

Swartz goes on to describe in general terms a literary-historical framework that matches so exactly with my interests that I am sure to memorize these words and use them over and over again:

We have Tao’s texts as redacted and restored by later readers. What we do know are readers’ interpretations of Tao and his works; what we can infer are the motivations behind these readings; what we can learn are the changes in literati values and reading practices; and what we can understand are the mechanisms behind Tao’s reception and construction.

Canonization is merely the first step of this process (this "mechanism"?)

My discussion distinguishes between canonization and reception, a process that continues after a writer has achieved iconic stature and his works normative status as an embodiment of a culture’s values.

Once an established icon, the shifting patterns of reception map against shifting cultural values:

His withdrawal brought to the foreground issues central to traditional literati culture: service versus reclusion, public duty versus self-cultivation, and loyalty to the state versus a transcendence of politics.

(Theoretical note: I've connected "values" here with "issues," a logical breakthrough for me. As issues are contested in a society, values are tested. For every major issue there are models, solutions -- portraits -- offered up by the culture to illustrate values. The values that writers can stand behind come to last the longest. But these can shift radically over the course of a culture's life. Witness Chinese family values in the age of revolution.)

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Tao Qian: 9 Snippets

Tao Qian: Coming into Focus

William Reynolds Beal Acker (1952).

Acker opens his volume of 60 poems in translation with a cogent and lucid introduction to early China generally, followed by an exposition on his life. One point that I imagine remains completely relevant since 1952 is that "Trade or business or manufacturing were looked down upon to such an extent that it would have been impossibile for a man like him [Tao Qian] to engage in them, even had he wished to do so." Less solid, but more entertaining, is a brief meditation on Tao Qian's supposed "alchoholism:" "Anyone who has had any experience with alcoholism does not need to be told what ruin it can cause in the life of the sufferer and those
dependent on him."

Lily Pao-hu Chang and Marjorie Sinclair (1953)

The edition of these two ladies presents a strikingly different portrait from that of Mr. Ackers. Reading both illumines a number of interesting issues: Was Tao Qian influenced by Buddhism? Was he really a lover of wine, or was wine-drinking simply a trope meant to signify honesty? Perhaps most important, what did being a good person entail for Tao Qian? Did he have a sophisticated moral philosophy? Chang and Sinclair also point out the great humor in Tao's wine poems, but are careful to guard against interpreting his poetry as any form of "escapism." How do they align that with the obvious desire to be a recluse? Finally, there is the issue of Tao Qian's individualism -- I'm beginning to think this card has been overplayed, and that Tao was much more a family man than we usually give him credit for being. More on that soon.

James Robert Hightower (1970)

Hightower's close association with Yeh Chia-ying and other poetry scholars in Taiwan in the 1960s, his complete exposition all available texts, and his "stubborn" insistence on his own interpretations all mark his work as the effort of an ambitious scholar seeking to set the standard in English-language reception of Chinese poetry. Reading his Introduction again, I was struck by another facet of the scholar who would be king: careful, almost equivocal treatments of the relevant issues. As in, Tao Qian's life and work "reflects the conflicts and contradictions of the period." Or with statements like, "It is good to read Tao Qian's poetry -- some of it -- as the product
of such a life as he describes; other poems show him to have been
rather less complacent." But this is not a criticism so much as a compliment; Hightower is guarded, yet gives a more evocative portrait of Tao Qian's times than other interpreters. As for the issues of Tao Qian's personal character -- he seems to prefer to leave Tao's poetry to speak to that.

A.R. Davis (1983)

Davis' approach is similar to Hightower's, but amazingly, he takes on a broader scope of writings and historical interpretation, with all the ambition that that entails. Davis' introduction stands out for its contentious attitude to the question of Tao Qian's critique -- despite a consistent effort to clarify Tao Qian's political context, ambiguity is built into these poems. Even more outstanding is Davis' lightning-fast account of this political context, especially the intrigues of the Jin court, the six ruling families, and the dreadful put-down of the Sun En rebellion. It is shocking to learn that even in the ancient world, this much war and death could transpire in just 5-7 years time -- the very years that Tao Qian is thought to have held office. Davis' point is that when we compare the awfulness of Chinese politics after collapse of the Han with the unsparing elision of that politics from Tao Qian's poetry, we know all we need to know about Tao's critical position.
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Tale of the Chicken Man

It's Spring Break, time for a little bit of extra pleasure reading. Just for fun, I'm reading translations of Chinese poetry that Arthur Waley did in the 1910s. For English readers of those days, it must have been like going your whole life without any knowledge of Chinese food and then suddenly getting a free pass to eat at a world-class restaurant featuring Western takes on Asian classics. Just read this one, it's outstanding:

Thank you, archive.org.

How does this poem sound in Chinese? Since we have the internet nowadays, we should be able to compare Waley's translations directly with Chinese texts, even as we sit in coffeeshops and sip our beers. The trouble with many of these particularly ancient poems is that "anon., 1st cent. B.C." is not the most helpful of citations. I'll be honest: I took over an hour to track this poem down. But it was a very interesting journey, a tour via Google through many odd corners of the web. I knew I was getting close when I located the phrase, Runan ji 汝南雞, lit. "the cock of Ru'nan [Ju-nan]" which many dictionaries online gloss as "In ancient times, a chicken that came from Runan, said to have a particularly good crow." From there I discovered that another common idiomatic phrase is Runan chen ji 汝南晨雞, "the morning cock at Ju-nan." Aha! From there it was a simple matter to track the poem back to a 12th-century text called the Yuefu shi ji 樂府詩集. This gigantic anthology of songs contains the Ji ming ge 雞鳴歌 "Cock-Crow Song." Commentary in this entry tells us that back in the Han dynasty, there were "chicken men" jiren 雞人, who were in charge of guarding the chickens on the palace grounds. When the roosters crowed just before dawn, the "chicken men" would also lift up their voices in song. The commentary does not explcitly say so, but I suppose this is what they sang.

Chinese Text:

東 方 欲 明 星 爛 爛 ， 汝 南 晨 雞 登 壇 喚 。 曲 終 漏 盡 嚴 具 陳 ， 月 沒 星 稀 天 下 旦 。 千 門 萬 戶 遞 魚 鑰 ， 宮 中 城 上 飛 烏 鵲 。
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Willow Cotton

Willow Cotton

In my last post, I mentioned that Yu Pingbo quoted from a poem by "Zhou Meicheng." I should have realized he was referring to Zhou Bangyan 周邦彦, an influential author of 'lyric' (ci 詞) poems in the 11th century. With a little help from an interesting blog called "Poetry Life" (Shici rensheng 诗词人生), I've put together a preliminary translation:

Brook-swept blossoms are never content to stay,	桃溪不作从容住
Yet autumn's lotus will have its way. There's no place to go on,	秋藕绝来无续处
To be together, like back then, on the bridge with dark red rail.	当时相候赤栏桥
So now I'm searching dead leaves in the dusty road;	今日独寻黄叶路
Out of the smoke, peaks rise up, endless green.	烟中列岫青无数
Men are like clouds, windswept and washed to sea,	人如风后入江云
But love is like cotton willow, rain-swept and stuck to the mud.	情似雨余黏地絮

桃溪不作从容住

秋藕绝来无续处

当时相候赤栏桥

今日独寻黄叶路

烟中列岫青无数

人如风后入江云

情似雨余黏地絮

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Women Writers in China: We are all good girls now

Chang, Kang-i Sun and Haun Saussy, eds. Women Writers of Traditional China: An Anthology of Poetry and Criticism. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999.

I liked the introduction to this anthology, which is broken up into rhetorical questions like "why women writers?" and "why poets?" The editors have really good answers to these and other questions that briefly illustrate the 'play of gender' in society by means of the tradition. A good wife, for example, once consoled her husband's failure on his examination by quoting a poem about how good girls do better than bad girls in the end. There is nothing queer in a wife comparing her husband to a good girl in the Chinese tradition; in fact, she is riffing off a famous poem by Du Fu, who most readers understand to have been comparing the good girl to himself. And Du Fu in turn relied on a long tradition of disappointed men who figured themselves as misunderstood 'good girls,' going back to the ancient apocryphal disappointed civil servant, Qu Yuan.

Given that tropes of female poets like the proverbial 'good girl' (jia nü 佳女) are so important to men and women alike, it is a relatively simple matter to show that actual female poets are also important to men and women alike. The 'real women' seem to become most interesting during the Ming and the Qing, when readers apparently eagerly devoured whole anthologies of poetry by women.

There's a good girl: Concubine Ban

The first poems in the short section of poets from "ancient times" are by 'Favorite Beauty Ban" (Ban jieyu) 班婕妤 (seen here turning down the Emperor's palanquin, lest she look like a hussy, from The Admonitions Scroll). The famous "Song of Resentment" (Yuan ge xing 怨歌行) was just elegant poutiness -- meh, but surely outdone by the longer, more elevated "Rhapsody of Self-Commiseration" (Zi diao fu 自悼賦). My favorite lines included,

Whether awake or asleep, I sighed repeatedly	每寤寐而累息兮
I'd loosen my sash and reflect on myself	申佩離以自思
I spread out paintings of women to serve as guiding mirrors	陳女圖以鏡監兮
Consulting the lady scribe, I asked about the Odes	顧女史而問詩
Saddened by the monition of the hen that crows，	悲晨婦之作戒兮
I lamented the transgressions of Bao and Yan	哀褒閻之為郵
I praised Huang and Ying, wives of the Lord of Yu	美皇、英之女虞兮
Extolled Ren and Si, mothers of Zhou	榮任、姒之母周
Although stupid and uncouth, and unable to emulate them	雖愚陋其靡及兮
Dare I still my thoughts and forget them? (translated by David Knechtges, pp. 19-20)	敢捨心而忘茲？

I love the idea that you need to loosen your clothing a bit to relax and think about yourself as a self. I could see myself turning on the computer after that, or reading a book, or watching some television. Ban the Concubine pulls out some paintings of really great women and some of really awful ones, and thinks hard about what their life stories mean for her own. I'd say the central tension here is over how to best be "good," and especially whether a girl can be too smart for her own good. Ban's mastery of highly elevated Chinese can only mean that she is very smart indeed, but still she tells us she is "stupid and uncouth." Is that what she really thinks? Or had calling yourself stupid already become a trope in self-reflection by Chinese women?
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