“What is the basis for this unity?”
Early and High Tang poetry set a premium on unity. There should be the formal unity of both the parallel couplet and regulated verse structure (introduction 起,
elaboration 承, [turn 轉,] response 合). There should be thematic unity: one states the theme and calls forth the appropriate allusions and images. That is, there is a
“thing” the poem is about, and one should not lose sight of that “thing” in writing. There also usually is a unity of perspective: one stands with the author and views
the scene.
These rules for the crafting of a poem break down after the An Lushan rebellion. In Late Tang poetry, for example, couplet-crafting becomes more important at the
expense of the poem as an integrated whole. Still, the idea of a poem as an integral unit remains. The question is, “What is the basis for this unity?” What belongs in
a poem? How much belongs in a poem? What holds a poem together as a single “thing?” Consider, for example, the complexity of Bai Juyi’s “Song of the Pipa.” The poem is
a good example of one new, more complex aesthetic: it is not heterogeneous despite its length and despite its various stylistic shifts.
For your second paper, I would like you to discuss a later Tang poem as a poem, as a constructed object. I would like you to explain the rules by which it coheres.
Does it follow the formal unities of the High Tang? Are the parallel couplets, for example, truly parallel, or is the author using the generic requirements to in fact
yoke together very different sorts of categories? Do the couplets evolve easily from one to the next, or are the shifts hard to follow? If they are difficult, try to
think of what validates the shifts. Are the couplets different aspects of experience with a particular object (the topic of the poem), or do they perhaps reflect the
movement of the author’s mind as it shifts from image to image? In the end, what is the point of the complex structure that is the poem, and how do the pieces fit
together?
