Naming and Meaning in the Landscape Essays of Yuan Jie and Liu Zongyuan.

• Author: YANG, XIAOSHAN

Yuan Jie and Liu Zongyuan are two of the most famous landscape essayists of the Tang period. Several of their essays revolve around places that they named themselves. Against the formal and thematic conventions of "social" and "personal" landscape essays, the present study compares the relatively stable relationship between physical and moral worlds in Yuan's essays with the tension prevailing between place naming and moral meaning in Liu's essays. The differences between the two writers, in this regard, are explained in terms of their political status and their psychological state as they encounter and write about the landscape.

Ouyang Xiu [CHINESE CHARACTERS NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (1007-72) once characterized Yuan lie [CHINESE CHARACTERS NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (719-772) as

a gentleman fond of names (xi ming zhi shi [CHINESE CHARACTERS NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]). Whatever he did, he was afraid of not being able to distinguish himself from others. He was also afraid that what he wrote about himself for posterity would not be extraordinary enough to be striking. That can be seen in his diction. It is true that gentlemen since antiquity had been ashamed of being unknown, but no one was so anxious. [1]

Ouyang Xiu's comment points to two interrelated issues that I shall explore in this study: the reason why Yuan Jie "would always himself name the scenic spots where he lived" was, as Ouyang Xiu noted, "his anxiousness for his posthumous fame." [2] Place naming in Yuan lie's writings is a means whereby he imprints his personality indelibly on the landscape, to be admired by future generations. This intricate nexus of interest in names and anxiousness for fame is also evident in Liu Zongyuan's [CHINESE CHARACTERS NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (773-819) landscape essays. The present study, however, is not an exercise in tracing literary genealogy or influence. [3] Instead, it compares the process of place naming in the two essayists in order to highlight aspects of the function and meaning of place naming in Tang prose descriptions of landscape.

I use the term "landscape essay" broadly to refer to prose writings wherein descriptions of natural scenery are structurally and thematically indispensable, as can be found not only in records of excursion (youji [CHINESE CHARACTERS NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] but also in such diverse genres as inscriptions (ming [CHINESE CHARACTERS NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]) and prefaces (xu [CHINESE CHARACTERS NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]). For heuristic purposes, I divide the landscape essays of Yuan Jie and Liu Zongyuan into those that are occasioned by the authors' visits to some newly completed landmarks, such as a pavilion, and those that are prompted by their exploration of certain hitherto unknown and unappreciated scenery. I will call the former "social" landscape essays and the latter "personal" landscape essays. Each type has its own conventions. In Yuan Jie's social and personal landscape essays, the naming of places is predicated on a stable and readable relationship between the physical and the moral worlds. Wit h Liu Zongyuan, especially in his personal landscape essays, the relationship between place naming and moral meaning is fraught with tension, owing primarily to his conflicting sentiments of resentment and regret over his political failure and secondarily to the unpredictable and uncontrollable forces released by his overindulgence in the rhetoric of nameplay. Consequently, Yuan Jie always speaks with a tone of authority, while Liu Zongyuan frequently falters in ambiguities. These ambiguities are not resolved until Liu Zongyuan finds a way out of his moral dilemma and overcomes excessive feelings of self-pity and self-righteousness in his landscape experience.

Until recently, the significance of place naming has received little serious treatment in the scholarship on Chinese landscape essays. [4] One of the first to deal with the topic is Richard E. Strassberg, in his study on travel writing from imperial China. [5] Strassberg maintains that the Confucian concern with the correspondence between "name" (ming [CHINESE CHARACTERS NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] and "reality" (shi [CHINESE CHARACTERS NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] lies at the heart of the literary inscription of landscapes. Against the background of the Confucian ideology that sees naming "as a core [concern] of the ruling class, who would employ the classical language to recover the moral structure of the golden age of the sage-kings," Strassberg observes that "the travel writer as a Noble Man [junzi [CHINESE CHARACTERS NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] rectifying names is a persona that appears in a number of texts, particularly the subgenre of the 'valedictory travel account."'[6] More specifically, we may observe her e that the act of naming in the landscape essays of Yuan Jie and Liu Zongyuan is motivated directly by their concerns with personal fame, though these concerns are sometimes framed in the grandiose rhetoric of establishing or restoring a greater moral order.

Strassberg sees in Yuan Jie's "Creek on the Right Side" ("Youxi ji" [CHINESE CHARACTERS NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]) the beginning of a frequent pattern in Chinese travel writing, i.e., "the encounter of a traveler with a hitherto undiscovered or unappreciated scene, followed by his lyrical responses to it, and, finally, his appropriate naming of it." [7] He further notes in this connection that, in several of Yuan Jie's works, the naming of the place is one of the devices for "the assertion of the quality of the writer's self through appropriation of a scene." [8] Such assertion, we may add, is in turn a means of perpetuating the writer's name and fame. What Strass-berg has hinted at but not specified clearly is the distinction between "social" and "personal" landscape essays. As I hope to show, the naming of places in the landscape essays by Yuan Jie and Liu Zongyuan is executed through different literary and social conventions and assumes different thematic and psychological functions in these two categories.

The most prominent convention of the social landscape essay is its panegyric or valedictory tone. Etiquette for interaction in polite society dictates that scenic descriptions be buttressed with an admiring reference to the administrative and moral accomplishments of the person responsible for the erection of the landmark. The naming of the landmark--a visit to which occasions the composition in the first place--functions as a rhetorical mechanism combining topographical descriptions and moral discourse. This combination can be exemplified with Yuan Jie's "Record of Extraordinary Pavilion" ("Shuting ji" [CHINESE CHARACTERS NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]):

In the middle of the year guimao [763], Ma Xiang, Lord of Fufeng, also governed in Wuchang. He held to the principles of forthrightness, faithfulness, seriousness, decisiveness, benevolence, and fairness. Consequently, he succeeded in carrying out his duties in no time. How true it is that forthrightness without faithfulness, seriousness without decisiveness, or benevolence without fairness would not have been sufficient for one to govern oneself, not to mention governing others! Lord Ma was capable of making the people hold to such principles with the result that he was able to have much leisure. As I disliked hot weather, he invited me over and built a pavilion for enjoying coolness. Facing the Great River, the pavilion was located up on the mountain, where excellent trees shaded each other and where clear breezes blew constantly. I wandered back and forth for prospects and was never tired of distant views. I saw that Lord Ma had extraordinary talent, [an] extraordinary administration, and [performed] extra ordinary deeds. Furthermore, the pavilion he built was also extraordinary. Accordingly, I named it "Extraordinary Pavilion." I have had the above record chiseled on a stone and set alongside the pavilion so that future visitors will not feel puzzled. [9]

For all its brevity, this record typifies the basic quadripartite structure of a social landscape essay: the narration of the building the landmark, the description of the view from the spot (however sparse it may be in this particular piece), the moral discourse deduced from, or added to, the view, and a short conclusion in which the author generally states either the time, or the circumstances, or the purpose for his writing. The main body of this quadripartite structure binds scenic description and moral reflection. [10] Here, place naming plays a pivotal role, since the word "extraordinary" designates appropriately both the topographical feature of the area and the moral character of the person who built the pavilion. Also typical of social landscape essays here is the intention professed in commemorating the pavilion, i.e., to monumentalize for the benefit of future generations the moral lessons derived from, and associated with, the place. As in many other instances, Yuan Jie's writing is physically ins cribed on a stone. [11]

In the structural model established by Yuan Jie for social landscape essays, the naming of a place smoothes and crystallizes the transition from natural description to moral reflection. [12] Liu Zongyuan's writings in this category evince an unmistakable similarity, though not necessarily direct indebtedness, to those of Yuan Jie. Liu Zongyuan's "Record of Pavilion of Ten Thousand Rocks [or "Piculs"--see below] of Vice-Director Cui in Yongzhou" ("Yongzhou Gui Zhongchen Wanshiting ji" [CHINESE CHARACTERS NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]) is especially noteworthy for its elaboration of the place name. The whole piece follows the quadripartite structure that we have seen above, though Liu Zongyuan's prose progresses with more twists and turns as it zigzags through narration, description, and exposition. [13]

Lord Gui of Qinghe, [formerly] Vice-Director of the Censorate, arrived to govern as prefect of...