Tonal prosody in three poems by Wang Rong.

• Author: Goh, Meow Hui
• Position: Critical Essay

1. INTRODUCTION

   This study is an exercise in reading the pentasyllabic poems of Wang Rong [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (467-93) by giving careful consideration to their tonal arrangements. Wang Rong was, as we are told in Zhong Hong's [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (466-518) Shi pin [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] [Gradings of Poets], the person who initiated the literary movement in tonal prosody during the Yongming [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] reign (483-93) of the Qi [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] dynasty (479-502). (1) Although the movement led to "Recent Style Poetry" [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], a new poetic genre that came into maturity in the Tang [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (618-907) and continued to be popular throughout the rest of dynastic China, it has been widely criticized in both traditional and modern studies. (2) Restrained by perspectives that are strongly influenced by the common understanding of Tang tonal prosody, many of these studies fail to recognize the complexity and value in the prosodic theories proposed by the Yongming poets. Accepting the prevailing belief that there were great discrepancies between their theories and actual writings, these studies also sought to understand their prosodic invention only at a conceptual level and rarely ventured into the works themselves. Focusing on Shen Yue [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (441-513) and Xie Tiao [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (464-99), they bring even less to light to Wang Rong's contributions or the originality of his poetics. Here I hope to suggest some new insights that may help in better understanding Wang Rong's poems as well as his idea of tonal prosody.

   It is common to think of tonal prosody as a fixed set of tonal rules or standard forms, serving to create a sound effect, usually described as euphony or harmony, in a literary composition. The discussions of the auditory components of poetry from Wang Rong's times, however, were based on broader and more complex premises. In his discussion on "Shenglu" [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] ["Sounds and Prosody"] in Wenxin diaolong [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] [The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons], Liu Xie [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (ca. 465-522) wrote:

   In our time when one plays a zither and the sound is out of tune, he definitely knows how to change and tighten [the strings]; when he puts out a literary composition and it turns out to be odd-sounding, yet he doesn't recognize the way to smooth it out. [The sound of a zither], though coming from those strings, is able to attain euphony; but the sounds that sprout from my mind-heart may yet lose harmonious rhythm. Why is this so? (3) The important concept that validates Liu Xie's question is this: "sounds sprout from my mind-heart" ([TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]). Although several earlier expositions of this concept can be found in the "Yueji" [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] ["Record of Music"] chapter in Li ji [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] [Book of Rites], Liu Xie's reiteration is significant in that he was not dealing with sound in the sense of music, but the sound of a literary composition. (4) By asserting that this sound, like that which constitutes music, "sprouts from one's mind-heart," he was implying that it is the externalization of an inner feeling or thought. With the basis provided by such an understanding of this sound, we are encouraged to think of tonal prosody as a poetic device that is directly connected to the process of expression. Liu Xie described the flight of a poet's "spirit thought" [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] as such:

   When he quietly concentrates his thoughts, his mind becomes linked to a thousand years in the past; and as his countenance stirs in silence, his vision may open up ten thousand leagues. In the midst of his chanting and singing, the sounds of pearls and jade issue forth; right before his brows and lashes is a spectacle of windblown clouds curling and unfurling ... (5) Special attention is given to sound in this passage. The cruising of a poet's mind entails not only spectacular idea-images, but also beautiful sounds. From the expansion of his thought and mind-vision to his act of "chanting and singing" [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] or "giving forth in sound" [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], we see the beginning of an externalization from his inner realm. This description serves to further elaborate the concept of "sounds sprout from my mind-heart." (6)

   As a practitioner of tonal prosody, Shen Yue approached the discussion on a different level. In his response to Lu Jue's rebuttal of his claim that "the secret of tonal prosody had never been unveiled since Qu Yuan," he pointed out that: (7)

   The notes of the musical scale are five in number, but the distinctions among words are many times ten thousand. To match the multiplicity of many times ten thousand against the restriction of the five notes--high or falling, low or rising--is not something that can be enumerated [exhaustively] by mental effort. (8) In Shen Yue's discourse, the problem was formulated around the question of how the "words" ([TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]) should be matched with what he called the "five notes" ([TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]). (9) It is essentially at this level that Wang Rong's poems will be studied here. If the sounds of a literary composition, like its words, are an externalization of the inner mind-heart, what, then, is the relationship between its sounds and words? Let us now look at three pentasyllabic poems by Wang Rong, to demonstrate his interpretation and command of the "sound-word" relationship. Through this, very different lights will be shed on the understanding of the idea and purpose of Chinese tonal prosody.

2. SHI BY WANG RONG

   1. "Jian Xie Wenxue liye shi"

      A Farewell Banquet for Literary Tutor Xie [Tiao] on the Night of His Departure (10) With our old friend we all sing and laugh together; Who can bear the songs and laughter at a time of parting? When alighting from your carriage, you'll be thinking of the "yellow birds," (11) And as you leave the islands, you will brood over the azure sedges. With tumultuous emotions, you will cling to the receding banners, And with flooding tears accompany the traveling waves. The Jiang in spring--at night in bright moonlight-- As you gaze back, what will your feelings be? [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] "Literary Tutor Xie" in this poem refers to Xie Tiao, who was leaving for Jingzhou [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] to serve under the prince of Sui commandery. (12) In the first two lines, we see a familiar technique in Wang Rong's farewell poems: posing a question to give the parting a sense of contradiction. While its language is plain, there is a clever twist of the words ge xiao and xiao ge. In this interplay we see the unfolding of the sense of contradiction on the level of diction and syntax. The tones of the first two lines are shown below:

      Tones of lines 1-2 Pattern ~-+-+ B A C A C -~^+- A B D C A Key: - ping A ping ~ shang B shang + qu C qu ^ ru D ru Note: The syllables in the lines are traced to the four tones of ping [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], shang [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], qu [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], and ru [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] in Middle Chinese, and not the simple bifurcation of ping and ze [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] prosody. Despite the strong tendency of the poets at this time to use the ping tone to contrast the other three tones, their tonal prosody was essentially one that made use of the alternations of all four tones. (13) The key given in the table above applies to all the tables on tonal reconstruction in this paper. A careful...