I love this poem and possibly for all the wrong reasons. It feels like two poems twisting in and out of one another as the flow of a creek and the branches and roots of a tree. Thank you for introducing Du Fu to me.
Are you deliberately merging the parallelism at the end there? Should the last two lines be read as part of both parallel sentences? Maybe put them on one line if so to indicate that more clearly.
You are correct that this poem paid particular attention to parallelism, in fact it could be argued that you understated the degree of parallelism. For example, the grammar of every word of the first two and last two lines are exactly parallel. The first and second lines are, as I read them: adjective, noun, verb, noun, adjective; the third and fourth are: verb, noun, adjective, noun, verb. Meanwhile, the contents of the parallel words are instead meant to contrast, as in the "driving rain" and "rays of the setting sun."
And the tonal pattern of the first and second, and third and fourth lines of this poem, as was the practice for this genre, are mirror images of each other. During the Tang dynasty the 平仄 were probably like this:
仄仄平平仄
平平仄仄平
仄平平仄仄
平仄仄平平
The grammar is strictly parallel, the contents contrast, and the tones are perfect mirror images. This poem attains the highest standard for 五言绝句.
A famous Du Fu scholar of the late Ming dynasty appreciated the juxtaposition of the driving rain and rays of the setting sun. He wrote that it conveyed the immediacy of the changing landscape. And later poets like 陆游 used the exact same words in exactly the same kind of parallel construction. For a poet like Du Fu, I think that combining apparently disparate elements in this manner suggests that he saw poetic connections that people don't see today.
That's the 杜臆, I guess? I have not yet made the effort required to understand these late-classical scholars. It is interesting to see their perspective, "理或有之"!
I certainly think there's something going on in this poem that we're not getting. Why the yellow birds? Are they orioles? In which case, why are they on the water? Why are the fish white? I feel like this text has many mysteries.
What were you thinking? Du Fu was at the height of his powers when he wrote this poem. Do you really want to use it to illustrate that Du Fu wrote a poem that was “not a poem”? No contemporary or later critic would have agreed with this appraisal. You could not have chosen a less promising target for your criticism.
Du Fu’s later poems are often difficult to interpret, and I suspect that I do not completely understand this one. In any event, all of the rules Du Fu strictly followed in accordance with this particular poetic form made it infinitely more difficult to write. I think some words would have stood out to contemporaries because the 平仄 or requirements of the parallel structure would have caught them by surprise, most likely to their delight. Traditional Chinese poets love poets who can incorporate apparently disparate content like this and still follow all the rules, and they love Du Fu in particular for writing poems that they themselves couldn’t write. For countless 五言絕句 that follow all of these rules but read like manuals on how to install a computer peripheral, please see the Qing dynasty.
I've been thinking about this comment a lot, and of course, there are many ways of looking at the poem, and I don't want to insist on my own view. But I think there are a couple of comments worth making.
First, I'm not sure you've read the 杜臆 correctly: it seems equally bemused by some of the pairings that Du puts together in these poems, and for this poem four in particular, can only raise a half-hearted 理或有之. Maybe. Maybe this works.
But more importantly, while classical scholars are an important resource, it's a mistake to imagine that all classical writers share the same intentions, meanings, and understanding of their own tradition. Wang Sishi was writing nearly a millennium after Du Fu, and it's not clear that he had access to sources we don't have today. He is a resource, but not an authority.
Similarly, Lu You may have used images inspired by Du Fu, but this is a function of his own creativity, not necessarily an endorsement of the image in Du Fu.
Finally, as contemporary readers, we must (must, must, must!) reserve the right to engage directly and authentically with the poems. The critical tradition is a worthy guide, but sacrificing our own critical faculties in favour of conventional judgments is just the shortcut to killing literature (see: every classroom in mainland China).
If your comment was just targeted at the phrase "not a poem" - that's just a bit of hyperbole. I trust my readers to recognise hyperbole when they see it, and if they don't, that's their problem.
My reading of this poem remains that it absolutely makes sense in the context of the series of six - which I read as an experiment in the innovative use of parallelism as a core poetic device, rather than merely a formal constraint. This experiment triumphs in no. 6 of this series, which I think is a masterpiece. But the experiment here pushes parallelism beyond its breaking point, and produces a poem that simply lacks coherence.
All caveats apply: I could be missing a lot, particularly in the sound of the poem, because I'm not hearing it in the Middle Chinese in which it was originally written and spoken.
I love this poem and possibly for all the wrong reasons. It feels like two poems twisting in and out of one another as the flow of a creek and the branches and roots of a tree. Thank you for introducing Du Fu to me.
Are you deliberately merging the parallelism at the end there? Should the last two lines be read as part of both parallel sentences? Maybe put them on one line if so to indicate that more clearly.
Yes, I'm deliberately messing up the structure. The original says:
A: on each side of/a nest/The yellow birds/stand in pairs
B: turning over/the pondweed/The white fish/leap
I break both of the lines into four parts and wind them together, but instead of going ABABABAB, I order the parts as ABABABBA.
It's definitely possible that I've ended up with an overly-complex rendering of a simple poem!
You are correct that this poem paid particular attention to parallelism, in fact it could be argued that you understated the degree of parallelism. For example, the grammar of every word of the first two and last two lines are exactly parallel. The first and second lines are, as I read them: adjective, noun, verb, noun, adjective; the third and fourth are: verb, noun, adjective, noun, verb. Meanwhile, the contents of the parallel words are instead meant to contrast, as in the "driving rain" and "rays of the setting sun."
And the tonal pattern of the first and second, and third and fourth lines of this poem, as was the practice for this genre, are mirror images of each other. During the Tang dynasty the 平仄 were probably like this:
仄仄平平仄
平平仄仄平
仄平平仄仄
平仄仄平平
The grammar is strictly parallel, the contents contrast, and the tones are perfect mirror images. This poem attains the highest standard for 五言绝句.
A famous Du Fu scholar of the late Ming dynasty appreciated the juxtaposition of the driving rain and rays of the setting sun. He wrote that it conveyed the immediacy of the changing landscape. And later poets like 陆游 used the exact same words in exactly the same kind of parallel construction. For a poet like Du Fu, I think that combining apparently disparate elements in this manner suggests that he saw poetic connections that people don't see today.
That's the 杜臆, I guess? I have not yet made the effort required to understand these late-classical scholars. It is interesting to see their perspective, "理或有之"!
I certainly think there's something going on in this poem that we're not getting. Why the yellow birds? Are they orioles? In which case, why are they on the water? Why are the fish white? I feel like this text has many mysteries.
What were you thinking? Du Fu was at the height of his powers when he wrote this poem. Do you really want to use it to illustrate that Du Fu wrote a poem that was “not a poem”? No contemporary or later critic would have agreed with this appraisal. You could not have chosen a less promising target for your criticism.
Du Fu’s later poems are often difficult to interpret, and I suspect that I do not completely understand this one. In any event, all of the rules Du Fu strictly followed in accordance with this particular poetic form made it infinitely more difficult to write. I think some words would have stood out to contemporaries because the 平仄 or requirements of the parallel structure would have caught them by surprise, most likely to their delight. Traditional Chinese poets love poets who can incorporate apparently disparate content like this and still follow all the rules, and they love Du Fu in particular for writing poems that they themselves couldn’t write. For countless 五言絕句 that follow all of these rules but read like manuals on how to install a computer peripheral, please see the Qing dynasty.
I've been thinking about this comment a lot, and of course, there are many ways of looking at the poem, and I don't want to insist on my own view. But I think there are a couple of comments worth making.
First, I'm not sure you've read the 杜臆 correctly: it seems equally bemused by some of the pairings that Du puts together in these poems, and for this poem four in particular, can only raise a half-hearted 理或有之. Maybe. Maybe this works.
But more importantly, while classical scholars are an important resource, it's a mistake to imagine that all classical writers share the same intentions, meanings, and understanding of their own tradition. Wang Sishi was writing nearly a millennium after Du Fu, and it's not clear that he had access to sources we don't have today. He is a resource, but not an authority.
Similarly, Lu You may have used images inspired by Du Fu, but this is a function of his own creativity, not necessarily an endorsement of the image in Du Fu.
Finally, as contemporary readers, we must (must, must, must!) reserve the right to engage directly and authentically with the poems. The critical tradition is a worthy guide, but sacrificing our own critical faculties in favour of conventional judgments is just the shortcut to killing literature (see: every classroom in mainland China).
If your comment was just targeted at the phrase "not a poem" - that's just a bit of hyperbole. I trust my readers to recognise hyperbole when they see it, and if they don't, that's their problem.
My reading of this poem remains that it absolutely makes sense in the context of the series of six - which I read as an experiment in the innovative use of parallelism as a core poetic device, rather than merely a formal constraint. This experiment triumphs in no. 6 of this series, which I think is a masterpiece. But the experiment here pushes parallelism beyond its breaking point, and produces a poem that simply lacks coherence.
All caveats apply: I could be missing a lot, particularly in the sound of the poem, because I'm not hearing it in the Middle Chinese in which it was originally written and spoken.