The power of classical Chinese poetry

I have been a great admirer of classical Chinese poetry since my undergraduate days at Peradeniya. The brevity of expression and the concomitant formal compactness, pervasive lyricism, sharpness of images and the deceptive simplicity of these poems had a deep and lasting effect on my sensibility. Indeed, in my own poetry in Sinhala, I have been influenced by classical Chinese poetry. Consequently in 1970, I published a book of translations of classical Chinese poetry that contained compositions of well-known poets such as Tu Fu, Li Po, Wang Wei and Tao Chien as well as lesser-known poets.

Classical Chinese poetry, to be sure, has shaped certain trajectories of modernism in English poetry. The translations of Chinese poetry- or more accurately trans-creations, by Ezra Pound and his theoretical disquisitions on the role of image in poetry, which focus on Chinese imagery, are important in this regard. Pound may have misunderstood the true nature and import of Chinese poetry; however, that misunderstanding, in a strange kind of way, served to galvanize modern English poetry.

Of the classical Chinese poets, my favourite is Tu Fu. I have read numerous English translations of the same poem by different translators and compared them. At the same time, I examined the original versions with the assistance of Dorothy Wong, my former Ph.D student, and now professor of translation studies at Lingnan University in Hong Kong. One of my ambitions is to publish a Sinhala translation of Tu Fu's poetry. Let us consider a poem by Tu Fu to gain a sense of his characteristic and privileged features. The translation is by W.S. Merwin who is arguably the greatest living American poet. Incidentally, he happens to live in Hawaii. The poem is titled, "Autumn Night."

The dew falls, the sky is along way up, the brimming waters are quiet
On the empty mountain in the companionless night
Doubtless the wandering sprits are stirring.
Alone in the distance the ships lantern lights up one motionless sail
The new moon is moored to the sky, the sound of the beetles
Comes to an end
The chrysanthemums have flowered, men are lulling their sorrows to
Sleep
Step by step along the veranda, propped up on my stick, I keep
My eyes on the Great Bear.
In the distance the celestial river leads to the town.

Tu Fu (712-770 A.D) was born in Hinan in the region of La-yang. He belonged to an elite family, his father serving as a district magistrate. He grew up to be a poet imbued with Confucian values. He was a devoted family man and was intensely loyal to the state, despite the fact that he had disagreements with the emperor. He cared deeply about the misery and hardships of the poor and dispossessed and this unsettling sentiment finds memorable expression in his poetry.

Tu Fu's impact on later generations of writers was profound and pervasive. He left behind nearly 1500 poems and they mirror his many-sided genius and poetic preoccupations. He possessed a powerful poetic sensibility, facility with language, and a technical mastery that many scholars of Chinese literature believe are unparalleled. Tu Fu was an intensely personal and confessional poet, and critics regard his poetry as a reliable guide to the trajectory of his biography. In the following poem he recaptures his sensations immediately after arriving in Sichuan when he was able to build a home, the comfort of which he had not experienced for many years. The poem is titled "Siting a House". The translations are by David McCraw; they are closer to the original text than the more poetic, but freer translations of others.

By the flower-washing waters, by the water's edge
As a master, I have chosen this secluded wood and pond.
Well I know, leaving a city decreases dusty business;
What's more, pellucid river dispels a wanderer's woe.
Innumerable dragonflies together rise and drop
A couple of wood ducks facing me bob and dive.
Myriad leagues away east, riding on high spirits,
I ought to head for Alpshade abroad a little skiff.

Tu Fu's intensely personal poetry, in keeping with his Confucian cast of min, is inflected by an abiding concern for his fellow citizens. In the following poem, which is highly personal, one also perceives the inscription of a deep social consciousness.

Darkling hues march up an alpine path;
My steep study camps by the water gate.
Tenuous clouds bivouac bordering cliffs;
A lonely moon tumbles among the waves.
Troops of cranes in silence fly pursuit;
A pack of wolves clamours to find a kill.
I am sleepless, worrying about battles,
All powerless to right heaven and earth.

Tu Fu, at times, succeeded in amalgamating introspective analysis, inward explorations with self-mockery in a way that few other classical Chinese poets were able to accomplish. The following passage illustrates this aspect of his sensibility.

As a man in nature's lopsided and addicted to lovely lines
If my lines don't startle others, in death I'll find no rest.
And now in my old age my poetry is really getting relaxed.

Commenting on this passage, the literary critic and scholar of Chinese literature Stephen Owen remarks that the easy going colloquial tone of the lines was characteristic of his Cheng-tu years. A strong humanitarian impulse courses through most of Tu Fu's poetry, energizing it with compassion, generosity of spirit and empathy. He saw and recorded in some of his poems somewhat disconsolately, how the war levies had begun to mount and placing an unbearable burden upon the poor and oppressed. In the poem titled another note to master Wu, he writes to his nephew Wu imploring him to allow impoverished neighbours to steal their dates.

Politics constituted an important theme in Tu Fu's writings, and it was not politics in the abstract but politics as felt on the pulse that animated him and gave focus and direction to his feelings. In many of his poems, politics and personal experience intersect in complex mutually nurturing ways. The following poem titled midnight reflects this proclivity of Tu Fu.

It is midnight, jiang and alps are stilled;
In a steep tower I gaze at the North Star.
Long have I been a myriad-league wanderer,
Much ashamed of this "hundred-year" fame.
O'er my land, vapour of windblown clouds;
Round the high hall, dust from the waging war.
The alien chick betrayed generous boons
Alas I all of you men from a peaceful time.

Tu Fu, like many other classical Chinese poets, wrote exquisitely beautiful nature poems that at times soared into the higher reaches of sublimity. What is distinctive about his nature poetry is that he sought to situate man in the natural world and put into play a tension between the two entities. This predilection becomes increasingly prominent in his later poetry. We see how the poet is constantly struggling to make sense of the phenomenal world, elevating human effort to an integral and constitutive factor in this effort. For him, plunging into the perceived object is a plunging into himself. This is not to suggest that he always succeeded in his endeavour, but the effort is certainly worth noting. For example, in the following poem titled facing the snow, which is an early creation of his, we see an unremitting attempt to impose a sense of meaning, order and pattern in the dynamics of the natural world.

In sorrow reciting poems, an old man alone
A tumult of clouds sinks downward in the sunset,
Hard-pressed, the snow dances in the whirlwinds.
Ladle cast down, no green lees in the cup
The brier lingers on, fire seems crimson.
From several provinces now news has ceased"
I sit here in sorrow tracing words in air.

What this poem seeks to do is to understand and come to grips with the antipathy and desolateness spawned by the phenomenal world. Tu Fu regarded the complexities and the perceived order of the world of nature as a contrast to the transience of the world of human affairs. The nature poetry of Tu Fu is very different from say Kalidasa (the greatest nature poet of India) and Basho (to my mind, one of the greatest nature poet of Japan). While Tu Fu wrote a kind of personal poetry Kalidasa focused on tans-personality, while Basho called attention to the impersonality in relation to nature.

Although Tu Fu came from an elite family, his life was full of many hardships and personal tragedies; life for him was an intense and bitter struggle. Often his family had to put up with starvation, and one of his children died as a result. He encountered numerous health problems as well as personal frustrations, and these experiences have clearly left a mark on his poetry. Tu Fu, it seems to me, is the kind of accomplished poet who should be read and re-read by Sri Lankan readers who are interested in poetry. He had a remarkable ability to perceive silence within noise, tranquility within turbulence and unsettle the reader's consciousness in order to lead it towards a more complex awareness of the world.