Zhu Xi as poet.

• Author: Yang, Zhiyi
• Position: Critical essay

This paper examines Zhu Xi's poetic composition chronologically and thematically. Whereas previous scholarship subjugates Zhu Xi's poetry to his literary criticism, and the latter further to his philosophy, this paper argues that the three endeavors did not necessarily share the same agenda. Read closely in its own right. Zhu's poetry reveals multiple dimensions: it advanced an aesthetic ideal; it proposed, commented on, and modified philosophical positions; it defined social relations; and it addressed the author's hidden political and private concerns. It also generated delight on its own. Many paradoxes underlay Zhu Xi's theory and his practice of poetry. A little-examined side of his apparent stance against literature is his visceral understanding of literature, developed from his long and self-conscious literary practice driven by both purpose and pleasure.

In the eleventh month of 1167, Zhang Shi (1133-1180), a prominent teacher in Hunan, invited a visiting scholar and his disciple on a wintry excursion to the snow-mantled South Paramount Heng. Inspired by the merciless blizzards, the three of them composed 149 poems in eleven days. The principal guest alone composed fifty-one poems. After a solemn farewell, the guest headed east toward his Fujian hometown. His spirit still burning, he produced another ninety-six poems in the twenty-eight days of the journey.

This diligent poet was Zhu Xi (1130-1200), who a century later would be enshrined in Confucian temples across China. (1) Today he is known to students of philosophy as a formidable opponent to the study of literature. This dominant opinion is supported by substantial evidence from various periods of his long life. Peter K. Bol argues that Zhu Xi represented a narrowed intellectual tradition, in which the moralistic "Learning of dao" (dao xue) eclipsed the diversity of cultural accomplishments (wen) represented by Su Shi (1037-1101), "the last of the great literary intellectuals." (2) Benjamin A. Elman also notices Zhu's "vehement" call for the complete abrogation of poetry and rhyme-prose from the civil examination. (3) In this line of scholarship, Zhu Xi seems to advocate the slogan "crafting literature harms dap", (4) coined by Cheng Yi (1033-1107), whose philosophy was accepted by Zhu Xi as a precursor to his own. Considering that Zhu Xi once in a dialogue approvingly cited this slogan, (5) his avid interest in "crafting literature," as demonstrated by his large body of poetry, may appear odd and peculiar.

Part of the seeming contradiction lies in the diverse, context-specific meanings of wen. Among its dozen definitions, those related to dao include: 1) patterned manifestation of cosmic principle; 2) cultural accomplishment; 3) writing in the broad sense; 4) "belletristic" literature, i.e., those literary texts that beyond their pragmatic functions are deeply concerned with aesthetic appeal, and that hence resist being reduced to mere vehicles of propositional messages: and, within the latter, 5) prose in particular. As a result, when two authors talk about wen and dap, both addressing their antagonism (or compatibility), the kind of wen they have in mind could be quite different. When Zhu Xi, in a single dialogue, first calls the wen of the classics the "overflow from dao," then compares dao to rice and wen to appetizing dishes, and finally reproaches Su Shi's wen as harming the orthodox dao, (6) is he salvaging wen, subjugating wen, or simply disapproving certain genres or styles of wen? The didactic flexibility of the dialogic form allows all these ambiguities to exist simultaneously.

Moreover, in practicing literature Zhu Xi developed a tacit understanding of its craft that he did not explicitly articulate when reasoning about wen in the philosophical discourse of the time. Unlike Cheng Yi, who had censored all his poems and left only three extant pieces, (7) Zhu Xi chose to leave an abundant literary legacy, documenting his poetic career from childhood to the last days of his life. (8) Despite losses, his extant poetry still comprises circa 1240 pieces, (9) generally compiled in chapters one through ten in the zhengji and chapter seven in the bieji sections of Hui 'an xiansheng Zhu Wengong wenji, published in 1532. In addition, his expertise in literary scholarship is also evident in three important works--Compiled Commentary to the Book of Odes (Shi jizhuan), Compiled Commentary to the Songs of Chu (Chuci jizhu), and Collation of Han Yu's Prose (Han wen kaoyi)--as well as in many colophons, epistles, and pedagogical dialogues.

Scholarship on Zhu Xi's literary writing and criticism has primarily appeared in Chinese. (10) In English scholarship, three important articles have been published in the last forty years. Richard John Lynn understands Zhu's literary theories as predicted upon the assumption that writing is at once a medium of personal expression and a vehicle of moral persuasion. (11) Michael A. Fuller's recent article forcefully argues that one major disagreement between the poetics of Su Shi and Zhu Xi was over the epistemological adequacy of language in representing the patterns that underlie the phenomenal world. In Fuller's view, Zhu's transformation of aesthetics into epistemology left its mark on his literary scholarship as well as practice. (12) Yet neither Lynn nor Fuller chose to go further to contextualize Zhu's literary theories within his literary practice. On this topic Li Chi's 1972 article "Chu Hsi the Poet" (13) remains the single contribution. In it Li aims to present an overview of Zhu Xi's poetry and argues that Zhu was unique among Neo-Confucians in having been troubled by his ambivalence toward poetry. Li, however, also exhibits a tendency to read Zhu's poetry as a footnote to his philosophy, an approach I do not adopt in the present paper.

While former-studies-interpret-Zhu Xi's werz within the framework of intellectual history. I will attempt an alternative interpretation primarily in regard to his poetic composition. I will argue that Zhu Xi's apparent stance against literature is only one face of the Janus. As such, it cannot be severed from his visceral understanding of literature, seldom articulated in theoretical discourse and developed from his long and self-conscious literary practice driven by both purpose and pleasure. His literary and philosophical pursuits were not necessarily consistent, but were nevertheless twin outcomes of a life-long dialogue within the same person. A proper study of one will shed light on the other. Yet there is also a degree of duality in au Xi's literary pursuit. Although it was interior and personal, (14) it was simultaneously public display--his identity as a man of private virtues provides the content of the display. Zhu Xi's extensive poetic production was his chosen method of engaging with his learned contemporaries and with ancient cultural models. Unlike the anonymous modern audience, Zhu Xi's contemporary readers often belonged to the author's immediate social circle. Zhu Xi was conscious of those to whom he displayed his image, stated his agenda, and for whom he performed acts of political or philosophical persuasion. Due to its manifold functions, poetry satisfied varying needs and thus maintained its vitality for him through a life deeply engaged with other intellectual pursuits.

This paper traces the development of Zhu Xi's style and divides it roughly into three periods. From his teens to around 1155 was the period of learning and exploration. In 1155 Zhu Xi regretted his youthful interest in Buddhism and decided to undertake the Confucian cause of self-cultivation. He therefore purged nearly all poems betraying a Buddhist persuasion (but spared his Daoist pieces) and edited the remaining into Purged Drafts in the Study of Self-Herding (Muzhai jinggao). (15) Most of the remaining poems are in the penta-syllabic archaic style, bearing affinity to the poetry of the Han and the Six Dynasties, but also of Tang poets like Wei Yingwu(737-792) and Liu Zongyuan (773-819). The second period is marked by his social activities and academic progress from the mid-1150s to the mid-1170s. His extant poetry from this period appears strikingly diverse. In addition to pentasyllabic verse, there are also some argumentative philosophical poems and a large number of very contemporary poems written mostly on social occasions. The last period, from the mid-1170s to his death, saw greater liberty, synthesis, and originality in his poetry, which achieved a mature form of clarity, control, and lyric fluidity. I examine a poem from this period, "Wuyi Boat Songs" ("Wuyi zhaoge"), as a representative of his late style in the last section.

IMITATION POETRY AND THE AESTHETICS OF PLAINNESS

The main body of Zhu Xi's poetry (in his zhengji collection) begins with a ritual poem, three rhapsodies (fu), and one zither song (qincao), followed by roughly 1200 pieces in the shi form, (16) and ends with sixteen ci songs. The sequence of genres shows a ranking of prestige. The order of shi poems does not suggest consistent editorial principles, (17) but it notably begins with a few "Imitating the Old" (nigu) poems in pentasyllabic, non-regulated meters, which from diction to topic emulate the "Nineteen Old Poems" traditionally attributed to the Han Dynasty. Their peculiarity and prominent place in the collection merit further examination.

These imitation poems might represent Zhu Xi's early practice. In a pedagogical dialogue, Zhu Xi instructs a disciple on the procedure of literary education. According to him, the single proper path is to read thoroughly and imitate rigorously. A case in point is his personal experience:

When I first read "Imitating the Old" poems, I thought it only meant to learn the ancients' style. But it turned out to be, for instance, when the ancient poet says "Bright, bright, blooms in the garden," the imitator also writes a line like this: or for "Exuberant...