This episode introduces the problem of writing for women in the Tang in terms of the ritual regulation of women’s behavior and the social nature of poetry writing, then discusses the poetry of Shangguan Wan’er, a palace woman who became secretary to Empress Wu Zetian and also served at the court of her successor Emperor Zhongzong, becoming his consort. Guest Host: Dr. Maija Bell Samei

This episode discusses the differences in tonal patterns between wujue and qijue, which had a clear impact on poetic practice. After the Tang, wujue became increasingly rare; we can conclude that poets no longer saw creative potential in the form—the great Tang writers had exhausted it. Qijue, on the contrary, remained one of the most popular and expressive poetic forms throughout the classical period. Guest Host: Prof. Charles Egan, San Fransico State University English poem recital by...

Although a small number of Six Dynasties heptasyllabic quatrains are extant, and Early Tang poets experimented with the form, stylistically mature qijue poetry was an invention of the High Tang poets, most notably Wang Changling and Li Bai. Qijue developed along with Tang popular music, for which it was the major song form. Thus initially the thematic scope was narrow: qijue lyrics were generally limited to popular yuefu themes and those describing parting from friends and loved ones. Only...

Although Tang poets all used wujue to record concentrated poetic experience, and pursued the same fundamental aesthetic goals for the form, differing styles of poems can be discerned. Using representative poems by Wang Wei, Wang Zhihuan, and Li Bai, this episode presents two basic styles of Tang wujue, differentiated primarily by the choice of themes and the type of language employed. Guest Host: Prof. Charles Egan, San Fransico State University English poem recital by Andrew Merritt...

The Chinese equivalent term of quatrain, i.e., jueju, literally means “cut-off lines.” It was erroneously believed by many critics that this meant the wujue and qijue forms had originated as quatrain segments cut from the eight-line lüshi forms. This episode begins with close readings of representative poems to provide readers a sense of the thematic and formal origins of jueju. A detailed examination of common jueju features then follows. Guest Host: Prof. Charles Egan, San Fransico State...

This episode examines how Wang Wei embodies moments of heightened perception or rather Buddhist enlightenment through his painterly depiction of a mountain climbing trip. His masterful blending of illusive images, perceptual illusion, and Buddhist worldview exemplifies his towering achievement as the poet-Buddha. Host: Zong-qi Cai, Lingnan University of Hong Kong; University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign English poem recital by Andrew Merritt @ Andrew Merritt (divacatrecords.com)

This episode examines Li Bai’s self-fashioning as a free spirit or rather the creator of the universe in a poetic form seemingly ill suited for making glamorous claims. The poem discussed is not among the best known of his works but well attests to his reputation as the poet-immortal. Host: Zong-qi Cai, Lingnan University of Hong Kong; University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign English poem recital by Andrew Merritt @ Andrew Merritt (divacatrecords.com)

This episode provides a close reading of Du Fu’s “Jiang and Han Rivers” and shows how the poet makes a masterful use of topic+comment construction to project his Confucian vision of the universe and the self and earns himself the title of poet-sage. Host: Zong-qi Cai, Lingnan University of Hong Kong; University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign English poem recital by Andrew Merritt @ Andrew Merritt (divacatrecords.com)

This episode explains the lexical, syntactic, and structural rules of regulated verse and shows how high Tang masters turn these formal rules into a nonpareil vehicle of projecting their visions of the universe and the self, as evidenced in Du Fu’s famous poem “Spring Scene.” Host: Zong-qi Cai, Lingnan University of Hong Kong; University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

This episode concludes our exploration of Six Dynasties landscape poetry by considering the verse of Xie Tiao (464–499). By Xie Tiao's time, landscape was becoming an increasingly common topic within the world of courtly verse. Partly for this reason, Xie's poetry begins to efface the previously definitive distinction between the human world and the natural landscape, and moreover imbues that landscape with the passions of the courtier—in Xie's case, both his yearning for the court and...

Xie Lingyun (385–433) is generally recognized as the progenitor and paradigm of poetry on "mountains and waters" (shanshui 山水). Where Tao Qian had written predominantly of the only-partly wild landscapes near his cottage, Xie made his theme the dramatic wildernesses of the southlands. Much of his poetry concerns the scenery of his massive estate, which he staffed with a small army of servants and retainers. His most powerful verse, however, was written in the rugged, unforgiving landscapes he...

Tao Qian (365–427) is premodern China's most famous recluse. After relinquishing his official career at around age 40, Tao returned to his rustic hometown to hide away from what he often suggested was a corrupt court and society. In the hermitage he made for himself at the foot of Mt. Lu, Tao wrote poetry that, on the one hand, extolls his enjoyment of life on the rural margin between the human world and the wilderness and, on the other, narrates the difficulties he had making a living there....

This episode discusses the prehistory of Chinese landscape poetry. In the centuries before poets began to write consistently of their concrete, personal experiences out in nature, landscape appeared in poetry primarily as a foil for the city and the court, where most poets were writing. In this role, the natural landscape could be terrifyingly inhospitable or wondrous and pure. Either way, it was for the most part imagined rather than experienced, a site more often for mental roaming than for...

The first of the “Nineteen Old Poems”, the best known poem of an abandoned woman in the collection, features a mosaic combination of time, space, and emotion fragments and thereby captures the otherwise inexpressible melancholy of an abandoned woman.  Such a mosaic combination is to become a preferred structure for the most intense of lyrical expressions in later poetry. Host: Zong-qi Cai, Lingnan University of Hong Kong; University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

Two distinct formal features, binary structure and multilateral texture, are developed in the “Nineteen Old Poems,” the definitive collection of Han pentasyllabic poetry.  The rise of these two formal features attests to the profound impact of transitions from oral performance to poetic writing, from the dramatic/narrative to the lyrical mode of self-presentation. Host: Zong-qi Cai, Lingnan University of Hong Kong; University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

After nearly one millennium since its birth, Chinese poetry achieved an optimal convergence of sound and sense in its pentasyllabic poems developed during the Eastern Han (25-220 CE).  Taking full advantage of an explosive rise of two-character compounds, the anonymous Han pentasyllabic poets created a poetic rhythm far more flexible and expressive than all existing rhythms and adapted it for philosophical reflection and emotional brooding on human transience. Host: Zong-qi Cai, Lingnan...

This episode discusses the two opposing interpretations of the poem entitled, “Mulberry Along the Lane,” one of the best-known yuefu songs in classical Chinese literature. Traditionally this poem has been interpreted as a representation of social injustice, depicting the situation of an official harassing a peasant girl. The other perspective is the poem is simply a verbal flirtation between a man and a woman and a popular song about a clever lady who employs an engaging and inoffensive way...

This episode analyzes this yuefu piece from different perspectives. As many of the popular songs of the Han, this poem contains dialogue and monologue at the same time. The poem follows a daring woman’s emotional changes from her initial rage against her lover from the south who jilted her to an unsettling feeling of anxiety. Guest host: Jui-lung Su, National University of Singapore

This episode first discusses the functions of the Han Music Bureau and the yuefu poetry as a poetic genre. It points out the fact that we still don’t know if the Bureau really collected these songs from various regions and matched them with music. Many of the popular poems we now call “Han yuefu” are actually preserved in the History of the Liu Song Dynasty written in the sixth century. The second part focuses on analyzing the yuefu poem entitled, “We Fought South of the Walls” from different...

This episode offers a detailed discussion of the structure and diction of the Lisao and describes the text not as a single poem but as a composite text created from different poetic registers, and different voices, that are otherwise known from the poems of Jiu ge, Jiu zhang, and Tian wen. Guest host: Martin Kern, Princeton University

This episode discusses how Qu Yuan’s poetry and biography flow seamlessly into each other, and how the figures of poetic hero and heroic poet repeatedly switched places. Likewise, later transmitters, commentators, and poets could appropriate Qu Yuan’s voice with ease. Guest host: Martin Kern, Princeton University

This episode discusses what the Qu Yuan persona meant to Han dynasty intellectuals. Why was Qu Yuan important to Han thinkers in literary, political, and historical, terms? What did they find in the Qu Yuan persona? How did they identify with that persona of their imagination? Guest host: Martin Kern, Princeton University

This episode continues our previous discussion of the Li sao or On Encountering Trouble. It focuses on two failed spiritual/supernatural trips or flights in search of Qu Yuan’s ideal and his final decision to commit suicide as the result of his disillusionment with his ruler and society. Guest host: Fusheng Wu, The University of Utah

This episode discusses Li sao or On Encountring Trouble,” the crowning achievement in the Chu ci repertoire. This poem evolves around the life of Qu Yuan, a poetic persona who is the alleged author of the poem. In the first part of the poem, Qu Yuan talks at length about his glorious family history and his own self-cultivation. Guest host: Fusheng Wu, The University of Utah

This episode provides a brief general introduction to Chuci; it also discusses a poem in this repertoire, Xian jun(“The Lord of the Xiang River), and its influence on Li sao (“On Encountering Trouble”) that will be discussed in the next two episodes. Guest host: Fusheng Wu, The University of Utah