“ Li He’s poem is a lovely, and packed with fine images, but conventional. It never achieved the fame of Li Bai’s because it lacks individual character.”
I’m sorry, but the post was good, the poem was great, but you ended the piece with such disappointing language that it spurred me to comment critically.
A poem, such as Li He’s, you characterize as being “lovely and packed with fine images,” but then attach to it the word “conventional” used as a pejorative.
A conventional poem from any era is usually not packed with fine images and not characterized as being lovely. A conventional poem would have clichéd images and probably wouldn’t be called lovely unless you want to dam it with faint praise
That’s bone number one that I’m picking.
Bone number two is you judging that the poem lacks character.
Maybe better for you to say that you liked Li Bai’s poem better because it has more of the “this or that” that you like, but isn’t it a mischaracterization, probably based on a false assumption, to say that Li He’s poem lacks character: I don’t think it does.
I stand with Li He!!
Nothing can get the blood boiling like poetic misunderstandings.
And lick their paws, partial to the orchid-girdled,
Till the end of all afflictions, when God sends us his chariot,
And the sword starred with jewels and the yoke of yellow gold.
I straddle my horse but there is no way back,
On the lake which swamped Li-yang the waves are huge as mountains,
Deadly dragons stare at me, jostle the rings on the bridle,
Lions and chimaeras spit from slavering mouths.
Pao Chiao slept all his life in the parted fens,
Yen Hui before thirty was flecked at the temples,
Not that Yen Hui had weak blood,
Nor that Pao Chiao had offended Heaven:
Heaven dreaded the time when teeth would close and rend them,
For this and this cause only made it so.
Plain though it is, I fear that still you doubt me.
Witness the man who raved at the wall as he wrote his questions to Heaven.
Edit: And just looking at Graham's introduction to Li He, he agrees with you: "...one is never in doubt of the pressure of an emotion which not only selects but exaggerates, distorts, invents the impressions which the poet offers to our senses, and of...this unvarying stamp of a unique personality"
The extra character in the final line is an interesting touch. I don't know about 'decorously distant' - it reminds me more of the end of Mozart's musical joke, ending on such a jarring note that you're snapped out of the uncomplicated enjoyment you probably felt a second prior.
“ Li He’s poem is a lovely, and packed with fine images, but conventional. It never achieved the fame of Li Bai’s because it lacks individual character.”
I’m sorry, but the post was good, the poem was great, but you ended the piece with such disappointing language that it spurred me to comment critically.
A poem, such as Li He’s, you characterize as being “lovely and packed with fine images,” but then attach to it the word “conventional” used as a pejorative.
A conventional poem from any era is usually not packed with fine images and not characterized as being lovely. A conventional poem would have clichéd images and probably wouldn’t be called lovely unless you want to dam it with faint praise
That’s bone number one that I’m picking.
Bone number two is you judging that the poem lacks character.
Maybe better for you to say that you liked Li Bai’s poem better because it has more of the “this or that” that you like, but isn’t it a mischaracterization, probably based on a false assumption, to say that Li He’s poem lacks character: I don’t think it does.
I stand with Li He!!
Nothing can get the blood boiling like poetic misunderstandings.
I’ll drink to that.
He's an excellent poet to stand with.
If you like Li He, I think A. C. Graham translated more of his poetry than anyone else, in Poems of the Late Tang (https://www.amazon.com/Poems-Late-Review-Books-Classics/dp/1590172574). Graham particularly highlighted this piece of craziness:
Don't Go Out the Door
Heaven is inscrutable,
Earth keeps its secrets.
The nine-headed monster eats our souls,
Frosts and snows snap our bones.
Dogs are set on us, snarl and sniff around us,
And lick their paws, partial to the orchid-girdled,
Till the end of all afflictions, when God sends us his chariot,
And the sword starred with jewels and the yoke of yellow gold.
I straddle my horse but there is no way back,
On the lake which swamped Li-yang the waves are huge as mountains,
Deadly dragons stare at me, jostle the rings on the bridle,
Lions and chimaeras spit from slavering mouths.
Pao Chiao slept all his life in the parted fens,
Yen Hui before thirty was flecked at the temples,
Not that Yen Hui had weak blood,
Nor that Pao Chiao had offended Heaven:
Heaven dreaded the time when teeth would close and rend them,
For this and this cause only made it so.
Plain though it is, I fear that still you doubt me.
Witness the man who raved at the wall as he wrote his questions to Heaven.
Edit: And just looking at Graham's introduction to Li He, he agrees with you: "...one is never in doubt of the pressure of an emotion which not only selects but exaggerates, distorts, invents the impressions which the poet offers to our senses, and of...this unvarying stamp of a unique personality"
The extra character in the final line is an interesting touch. I don't know about 'decorously distant' - it reminds me more of the end of Mozart's musical joke, ending on such a jarring note that you're snapped out of the uncomplicated enjoyment you probably felt a second prior.