Words Well Put
Page 27
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26. Qu et al., Chu ci, p. 92.
27. Ruan Yuan, Shisan jing, vol. 1, p. 271b.
28. For a brief discussion of the semantic range of feng, see Owen, Readings, pp. 586–87.
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Any statement about the feng adheres to the Classic of Poetry and, by extension, to poetry as a whole. Playing on the literal sense of feng as
“wind”—and its ability to bend the reeds against which it blows (see
Analects 12.19)—the “Great Preface” tells us that the feng can be used to transform behavior in the people and correct it in their rulers.
Kong Yingda’s comment on this passage in the “Great Preface”
deemphasizes the top-down use of feng to transform the people:
The Poems were all composed by ministers to remonstrate with their rulers.
Only afterward did the rulers use them to transform their inferiors. The reason this passage first says, “superiors use the feng to transform inferiors,” is because the didactic [nature of feng] stems from the ruler. Superiors and inferiors all use [the feng], but while the former is respected, the latter is disparaged.
詩皆人臣作之以諫君。然後人君用之以化下。此先云上以風化下者，以
其教從君來。上下俱用，故先尊後卑。29
The primary and original function of feng, then, is as a form of criticism of those in power. An inherent property of this form of
criticism, according to the “Great Preface,” is the ability to shield
the speaker from culpability while still retaining the cogency of the
critique. Meng Qi, using the term “admonition,” alludes to these
precepts. 30 The entries in Storied Poems provide fascinating examples of the change in scope of these precepts and how they hold up or
break down within the realm of anecdotal narratives reflecting Tang
poetic practice.
A strong note of immediacy prevails in the examples I have given
of early usage of the terms for “lyricism” and “admonition.” The
phrases “plead my case,” “unleash my ire,” “he who speaks,” and “he
who hears” all suggest an oral performance, whether it is personally
or politically motivated. By attaching these terms to phrases such as
“exquisite composition” and “elegant words,” Meng Qi has trans-
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29. Ruan Yuan, Shisan jing, vol. 1, p. 271c.
30. Meng’s use of the compound fengci 諷刺 condenses the verbal phrase of the
“Great Preface,” xia yi feng ci shang 下以風刺上, into a two-character nominal phrase, indicating its entrenchment as a fundamental concept. The addition of the speech radical (言) to feng 風 distinguishes the verbal denotation from the primary denotation of “wind.”
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Gleaning the Heart
175
ferred the oral performance onto the written page. And this is pre-
cisely what he has collected: a series of written texts that depict performances of poetry in speech and writing; many performances
have only a secondary oral component or none at all. By referring to
the concreteness of the text, Meng has displaced us from a world
where poetry simply happens immediately to one where poetic
performance is captured and preserved through writing. The poem,
the one who speaks it, and the one who hears it now exist apart
from us as literary creations on the pages of “myriad books filling up
shelves and overflowing cabinets.” Their world may threaten to
overflow the confines of our own, but it is forever separate.
Or is it? Faced with such a plethora of “exquisite” and “elegant”
texts, one needs a criterion to choose what is worthy of attention.
Meng Qi offers that “instances in them of being moved to intone a
poem by encountering events are what really cause one’s feelings to
well up.” Here we find two levels of emotional reaction, encom-
passing both production and reception. The concept summed up in
the phrase “being moved to intone a poem by encountering events”
觸事興詠 is yet another version of the ancient stimulus-response
model outlined in the “Great Preface.” The external world stirs the
feelings, which then find expression in the form of a poem. The
primary sense of “things” ( wu 物) as concrete objects rather than as
“events” ( shi 事) providing stimulus for poetry is prominent in nature poetry. In his preface to the Collection of Emperor Wu 武帝集, Shen Yue 沈約 (441–513) writes, “The brilliance of sunshine and
moonbeams, the southern breeze—this is what moves one to intone
a poem” 日月光華。南風。所以興詠. 31 But, as the “Great Preface”
asserts (and the “Lesser Prefaces” demonstrate), events can also
move one to poetic production. Meng’s use of the word “event”
rather than “thing” shifts the emphasis from a spatial to a temporal
extension. As The Great Learning 大學 states: “Things have a root
and extremity, while events have a beginning and end” 物有本末。
事有終始. 32 These poems are not in response to inanimate objects,
—————
31. Yan, Quan shanggu, vol. 3, p. 3123.
32. Ruan Yuan, Shisan jing, p. 1674.
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Gleaning the Heart
but result from what happens to people in their encounters with
other people.
Meng goes on to say that the cases in which an emotional reaction
to the external world leads to poetic utterance “are what really cause
one’s feelings to well up.” The expression “feelings welling up” 鍾情
is derived from the following anecdote in Topical Tales, found in the section entitled “Grieving for the Departed” 傷逝:
When Wang Rong lost his son, Wanzi, Shan Jian went to ask after him
only to find Wang overcome with grief. Jian said to him, “He was just a
little sprout, still a babe-in-arms. Why are you in such a state?” Wang replied, “A true sage may be able to forget his feelings, while the lowest creatures do not even have them. Where feelings truly well up is in people just like us.” Jian took his words to heart and even lamented on his behalf.
[17.4]
王戎喪兒萬子。山簡往省之。王悲不自勝。簡曰。孫抱中物。何至於
此。王曰。聖人忘情。最下不及情。情之所鍾。正在我輩。簡服其言。
為之慟。33
Behind the phrase “feelings welling up” lies the sense that it is a
certain type of person, still of this world but with sensibilities more
refined than those of the average person, that can truly feel emotion.
It is this type of person that can appreciatively respond to poetry
with his own emotional reaction.
In his preface, however, Meng Qi does not specify where this
emotional reaction lies. Is he referring to the reception of poetic
performance as it is portrayed in the anecdotes he has collected?
There are many striking examples of this in Storied Poems. Or is he referring to our reception as readers of that v
ery portrayal? It is this vacillation of location that reestablishes a connection between the
world depicted by the written text and our world. For if we share an
emotional reaction to a poem with the audience depicted in an an-
ecdote, has not a sentimental connection been established between
the worlds of the story and of the reader? The reader’s sympathy
creates continuity between the text and the world it inhabits.
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33. Liu Yiqing, Shishuo, p. 637.
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Gleaning the Heart
177
The continuity between the present and the past through literary
heritage is a fundamental tenet of Chinese literary thought. Mencius
articulates it in the following famous passage:
An upright gentleman of a single district will seek friends among other
upright gentlemen of the district. An upright gentleman of the state will seek friends among other upright gentlemen of the state. An upright gentleman of the world will seek friends among other upright gentlemen of
the world. Should befriending other upright gentlemen of the world be
insufficient, then he will take the extra step of considering the ancients. But should he sing their poems and read their books without knowing them
personally? Because of this, he will consider the age in which they lived.
This is what is meant by “taking the extra step” to seek out friends. (5B.8) 一鄉之善士。斯友一鄉之善士。一國之善士。斯友一國之善士。天下之
善士。斯友天下之善士。以友天下之善士為未足。又尚論古之人。頌
其詩。讀其書。不知其人可乎。是以論其世也。是尚友也。
The possibility that an emotional continuity might be established
through texts is compelling. It can only be reliably established,
however, by taking the context of those texts into consideration.
Such a context is ascertained, of course, through other texts, which
leads to a well-known circle in Mencius’s reasoning. Meng Qi takes
up this point later in his discussion of how narrative may provide a
context for poems.
The latent emotional force in texts underlies the language Meng
Qi uses in his next statement regarding his motivation for compiling
Storied Poems: “If someone does not manifest these instances, then who will comprehend their significance?”
What I translate as “manifest” 發揮 is a phrase with ancient and
powerful connotations. It first appears in the Classic of Changes, in the “Commentary on the Words” 文言 for the first hexagram, Qian
乾: “The six individual lines open up and unfold the thought, so
that the character of the whole is explained through its different
sides” 六爻發揮。旁通情也. 34 In a more recent translation, reflecting Wang Bi’s 王弼 (226–249) understanding of the Classic of Changes,
Richard Lynn renders this passage as: “The six lines emanate their
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34. Wilhelm, I Ching, p. 378.
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Gleaning the Heart
power and exhaustively explore all innate tendencies.” 35 The discrepancy between the translations as well as their general ambiguity
results from the nebulous language of the Classic of Changes. Kong Yingda tries to elucidate the passage by saying, “Fa 發 means to
‘diffuse,’ and hui 揮 means to ‘disperse.’ It says that the six lines diffuse and disperse, permeating the conditions of the entire universe” 發謂發越也。揮謂揮散也。言六爻發越揮散。旁通萬物之
情也. 36 Through a parallax view based on these different interpretations we gain a sense that the core meaning of fahui involves an uncovering and subsequent manifestation of inner power, a conver-sion of the potential into the kinetic. This power, once unleashed,
naturally moves out and into the world.
Certainly by Meng Qi’s time fahui might have meant nothing
more than “elucidate,” but in using this precise term he opens the
door to a powerful analogy between the operation of the hexagrams
of the Classic of Changes and the way that the poems of Storied Poems interact with the world. As the lines of a hexagram contain a power
that permeates the “conditions” 情 of the universe, so too do the
lines of a poem contain a power that penetrates the “feelings” 情 of
the hearts and minds of those who hear (or read) them. The
graphical coincidence of the character for “conditions” and “feel-
ings” strengthens this analogy. By selectively bringing to our atten-
tion instances of truly affective poems from a morass of texts, Meng
Qi claims to be unleashing the inherent power of a poem to affect
both the audience depicted in the anecdotes and the reader of those depictions. His stated critical goal of uncovering the emotional
power of poetry mirrors the process of poetic production itself, in
which the feelings of the interior are uncovered. The passive voice
of Meng’s supposition—literally, “if there is not a manifestation
then . . .” 不有發揮—implies that his goal will be accomplished
naturally once the texts are placed in a proper setting. Meng Qi
addresses what constitutes a “proper” setting later in his preface.
Meng rounds out his supposition with “who will comprehend
their significance?” His usage of the term “to comprehend signifi-
—————
35. Lynn, Classic of Changes, pp. 130–31.
36. Ruan Yuan, Shisan jing, vol. 1, p. 17a.
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Gleaning the Heart
179
cance” 明義 reinforces the apparent truth of what he is saying
through its very connotations, derived from its earliest usage in the
“Martial Success” 武成 section of the Classic of Documents:
He [King Wu of Zhou] showed the reality of his truthfulness, and proved
clearly his righteousness. He honored virtue and rewarded merit. Then he had only to let his robes fall down and fold his hands, and the empire was orderly ruled. 37
惇信明義。崇德報功。垂拱而天下治。
Here, Meng plays on the semantic range of classical Chinese. He
replaces the factitive sense of ming 明, “to prove clear,” with its putative sense, “to consider clear.” The moral sense of yi 義, “righteousness,” is diminished in favor of its epistemological sense of “sig-
nificance,” “principle,” or “truth.” In this last modulation he may
again be influenced by the “Great Preface,” which ascribes “six prin-
ciples” of poetry 六義 to the Classic of Poetry. The implication is that Meng has discerned a truth about poetry, a principle of its operation
that will become clear to us when a range of examples is collected in
one place with narratives outlining their production and reception.
In these few opening lines of his preface, Meng Qi has not only
sketched out a model of poetic production and reception, but also
has stated his motives for compiling Storied Poems. An examination of individual entries will show how his pristine general principles
fare in the face of gri
tty detail. The tension between his theory and
the practice depicted in the texts proves particularly fruitful because
Meng Qi did not compose the pieces himself and was thus unable to
fashion them to suit his own agenda. He did exert influence over his
texts as an editor in making his initial selections and subsequent
emendations, but it was impossible for him to completely efface the
inherent characteristics of his source materials. Nor would he have
wanted to; a statement of general principles in a preface is not
binding. The nature of Storied Poems results less from any theo-
retical agenda Meng Qi may have had than it does from his com-
positional methods and source materials: the subject that he takes up
next in his preface.
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37. Legge, Shoo King, p. 316.
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________________________
因采為本事詩。凡七題。猶四始也。情感。事感。
高逸。怨憤。徵異。徵咎。嘲戲。各以其類聚之。
So I have gathered them together in a book called Storied
Poems. In all there are seven headings akin to the Four
Beginnings [of the Classic of Poetry]: (1) Moved by Feelings,
(2) Moved by Events, (3) Highly Unconventional, (4) Re-
sentment and Frustration, (5) Signs of the Strange, (6) Signs
of Ill Omens, and (7) Mocking and Jesting. I have assembled
every one according to its category.
________________________
In his simple use of the word “gather” 采, Meng Qi speaks
volumes about his method of composition. The idea of gathering
works has very specific connotations derived from an early theory
of how the Classic of Poetry was compiled, quoted here from the
“Bibliographic Treatise” 藝文志 of the Han History:
In ancient times there were officials who gathered poems; through them
the rulers could observe the customs of their people and know their suc-