Some Basic Knowledge for Reading Regulated Verse

2008/1/14 16:16:08

Due to the mischief of the May Fourth rascals and the Cultural Revolution fools, the most basic common knowledge of Chinese culture has become universally lacking among the Chinese people. For someone like this ID, born in the post-Cultural Revolution era, if we still turn out like our parents' generation, then Chinese civilization would truly be beyond redemption.

By this ID's standards, Chinese culture in the 20th century has been nothing but a farce of hooligans and mediocrities dancing about. Where were the masters? An era in which Lu Xun, Hu Shi, and Xiong Shili could be called "masters" — if that isn't a garbage era, what is?

Regulated verse, first and foremost, has its prosodic rules — tonal patterns, rhyme schemes, and so on. This knowledge is easy to find online or in books; just study it and you'll get it. Of course, once you reach a certain level in writing regulated verse, you may start to venture into so-called "irregular forms" (aoti). Irregular forms don't violate the prosodic rules; rather, they create their own rhythms and striking resonances in the spaces between adherence and departure from the rules. Whether someone's technique is simply too clumsy to follow the rules, or whether they are genuinely writing an irregular form — to a discerning eye, the two are absolutely unmistakable.

There is one phonological issue that must be noted when reading regulated verse: one is the question of entering-tone (rusheng) characters, and the other is the Pingshui rhyme system. Some people read a poem and think, "How can this poem use a level tone where an oblique tone is required?" — that's when you need to pay attention, because that character might be an entering-tone character.

For example, in this ID's line "佩斯布达古桥拖" (Pest-Buda, ancient bridge, dragging), the position of "达" (da) should use an oblique tone, but if you read it in Mandarin, "达" is a level tone. In fact, "达" is an entering-tone character, and entering-tone characters are naturally oblique.

As for the rhyme question, regulated verse rhymes according to the Pingshui system, not the so-called rhymes of modern Mandarin. For example, still using this same line, "拖" (tuo) belongs to the "ge" rhyme group (下平五歌) in the Pingshui system, and naturally rhymes with "何, 歌, 戈, 波" (he, ge, ge, bo).

Some might say, "Society has advanced; we should follow Mandarin and abolish entering-tone characters and the Pingshui rhyme system, adopting so-called 'new rhyme.'" This is the classic mentality of a slave who's been abused. Why? Because the disappearance of entering-tone characters and Pingshui rhymes from so-called Mandarin is ironclad proof of the ravaging of Chinese civilization. Without the enslavement under the Yuan and Qing dynasties, this would never have happened.

Mandarin is the product of Chinese civilization being violated and enslaved.

More importantly, in the dialects of most regions south of the Yangtze River, entering-tone characters and Pingshui rhymes are preserved. If you speak Wu, Chu, Min, Cantonese, or other dialects, you'll know that using Pingshui rhyme is perfectly harmonious. Even more important are the entering-tone characters themselves — it is precisely because of the existence of such characters that the linguistic medium of Chinese civilization is suffused with musicality and emotional depth. Entering-tone characters are the most emotionally charged category of all. Without entering-tone characters, there would simply be no way to achieve a poetic expression of the most intense emotions.

Although this ID is from Beijing, and Mandarin or Beijing dialect is this ID's everyday language of communication, this ID has never felt that Mandarin or Beijing dialect can properly recite any classical poem with full beauty of sound and color. Listening to those so-called classical poetry recitations flooding the airwaves in that very CCTV manner gives this ID goosebumps.

Therefore, anyone who doesn't even know about Pingshui rhyme or entering-tone characters and then says "this doesn't rhyme" or "that's the wrong tonal pattern" — you don't even need to look at such people with very contemptuous eyes, because they're not worth it. Their brains still carry the victim-gene from when the nation fell to the Yuan and Qing. Better to just pity them.

Secondly, to write good regulated verse, the more knowledge one has, the better. Du Fu said, "Read ten thousand volumes and your brush will write as if divinely guided." In this era, to write good regulated verse, that requirement is far too modest. All of human knowledge, as far as possible, should be familiarized and understood. As for knowledge of astronomy, geography, literature, history, philosophy, art, and so forth — that is merely the foundation. Therefore, to read properly, one's breadth of knowledge must also be wide; otherwise, you will very likely expose your own shortcomings.

For example, everyone knows Budapest, but seeing this ID's line "佩斯布达古桥拖" (Pest-Buda, ancient bridge, dragging), without geographical knowledge you'd think this ID got the name backwards. In fact, Budapest is composed of two places — Buda and Pest — separated by the Danube. Both names mean "furnace," one from German and the other from Slavic. Historically, Budapest was first called Pest-Buda, and only later, because the king resided in Buda, was it changed to Budapest. Thus, this line of verse has a verb "拖" (drag) connecting the three images of Pest, Buda, and the ancient bridge.

Similarly, without humanistic knowledge, you wouldn't be able to understand the line "青铜世纪独挥剑" (In the Bronze Age, alone wielding the sword), because to understand it, you need to know at least that "The Age of Bronze" is one of Byron's most famous satirical poems, and furthermore, you need some familiarity with the cultural phenomenon of the "Byronic hero."

Because regulated verse has strict requirements on character count and prosody, the language cannot sprawl like prose. Therefore, many times unnecessary elements must be omitted. For example, still with "佩斯布达古桥拖" — the subject is omitted here. You can think of Pest and Buda as two wheels, connected by the ancient bridge. Then, who is pulling this carriage — symbolic of a nation — through the river of history symbolized by "the Blue, Sorrowful Danube"? Who is leading this long-suffering nation? Here, a space is left for the imagination.

The imagery of classical poetry is co-created by the reader. The author provides you with space for imaginative blank-filling, and based on your own learning and cultivation, you see different imagery. If your knowledge is a bit richer, you'll recognize that the traditional technique of "xing" (associative evocation) is being used here. And of course, if you're perceptive enough, you'll easily notice the subtle wordplay technique in "the Blue, Sorrowful Danube" (蓝色多愁多瑙河).

Lines of verse are textual symbols. Textual symbols cannot fully encode all emotional factors. One of the greatest virtues of classical poetry is that it recognizes the characteristics of textual symbols and uses the most concise language to provide sufficient blank space for readers to co-construct a poetic space-time.

Of course, to truly read regulated verse well, one must further attend to the spatial-temporal relationships between lines, as well as the overall structural design and its corresponding emotional conveyance. Many subtle emotions are expressed through the delicate relationships among characters, lines, and the poem as a whole. Only by gradually sensing these subtleties can one claim to have begun to truly enter the poem.