Organizer: Zong-qi Cai, University of Illinois
Chair: Shuen-fu Lin, University of Michigan
Discussant: Eugene Eoyang, Indiana University
The impact of oral performance and poetic writing on the development of early Chinese poetry is an important subject of inquiry largely neglected in traditional Chinese poetics. Although traditional Chinese critics often talk about the origins of particular works in oral performance or literati writing, they seldom discuss broader issues of poetic evolution in the light of the interaction between oral and literary traditions at the time. Our panel represents a concerted endeavor to introduce orality/literacy interaction as a new paradigm for investigating a number of issues crucial to our understanding of poetic evolution Chinese from the Han (206 B.C.-220 A.D.) through the Six Dynasties (266-589 A. D.).
Gloria Shen's paper examines the emergence of the concept of non-performative shih poetry in Chinese poetics and presents a broad conceptual framework for the ensuing discussions. It is her observation that the concept of the genre of shih as mainly aesthetic and largely divorced from political concerns may be a reflection of the shift from orality to literacy. Cai Zong-qi's paper concentrates on the intrinsic studies of Han yüeh-fu works. In some poems, he finds a preponderance of formulaic themes and forms stemming from collective oral performance in a communal setting. In other poems, he notices the prominence of Han literati feelings and thoughts expressed in a fairly lyrical manner. He proposes to categorize Han yüeh-fu works into two broad sub-genres (folk and literary yüeh-fu) on the ground of these two sets of intrinsic qualities. He believes that such a re-definition of Han yüeh-fu will allow us to bypass the unsolvable issue of authorship and focus on the examination of the dramatic and narrative modes in these two sub-genres. Charles Egan's paper applies selected orality/literacy techniques to the study of pentasyllabic quatrains (chüeh chü) from the Six Dynasties period. He discerns distinct 'colloquial' and 'literary' styles and a hybrid of the two styles. The 'colloquial' style quatrains are highly formulaic compositions utilizing a narrative mode The literary style quatrains exhibit a visual verbal texture and represent a descriptive mode. The hybrid poems combine narrative and expressive strains in a way that anticipates the mainstream T'ang pentasyllabic quatrains. His discussion of the interaction among these three styles sheds fresh light on orality/literacy ideas and on the development of Chinese poetry.
Our panelists hope that our work, in its methodological and theoretical diversity, will not only provide new critical insights into the evolution of Chinese poetry from Han through Six Dynasties, but offer unique Chinese perspectives on the theoretical issue of orality and literacy.
Gloria Shen, University of Georgia
The generic significance of shih in Chinese literary history and poetics has remained a nebulous issue throughout the centuries. The mainstream exegetic tradition in China has always taken poetry as the means towards ethical and political ends; whereas, literary critics of Chinese poetry tend to rectify this traditional practice by separating the aesthetic from the political and social concerns originally associated with early Chinese poetry and further broadens the fissure between genres and various functions that early Chinese poetry might have for centuries. My investigation, intended to be part of a critical approach pertaining to the root of the matter, is to examine the notion of "poetry" as a genre as it is applied to the corpus of ancient Chinese literature called shih. It is my observation that the conception of the genre of poetry as mainly aesthetic and distinct from history or anything else, as developed later in China, and much earlier in the West, might be a result of the shift from orality to literacy in both traditions. My intention is not necessarily to endorse the Confucian exegetic tradition by underscoring the moral and political dimension of early Chinese poetry, but to elucidate the multifarious functions of shih in a more holistic perspective.
Zong-qi Cai, University of Illinois
This paper examines a number of representative Han yüeh-fu compositions, and identifies two distinct clusters of thematic and formal features. The first cluster (dramatic presentation, situational thinking, ahistorical presentation, abrupt transition, composite structure, repetitions) must have arisen from collective composition and performance in a communal setting. Without a single exception, the entire cluster falls into the repertoire of universal or quasi universal themes and forms of folk poetry established by contemporary critics. To confirm the origin of this first cluster in the folk oral tradition, I will seek to corroborate my textual analyses with some secondary literature about the custom of collective composition and performance in the Han times. The second cluster (literati concerns, sequential structure, dual points of view) must have evolved from the first cluster. By comparing the second cluster with the first one, I will try to trace a gradual replacement of folk themes with literati concerns about the transience of human existence and an adaptation of various oral formulas for a largely linear narration of inward experience by a story teller. On the ground of the differences between these two clusters, I will make a broad intra generic distinction between folk yüeh-fu and literati yüeh-fu and distinguish the dramatic mode of presentation in the former and the narrative mode of presentation in the latter. It is hoped that this two fold scheme of classification will offer an alternative to traditional schemes of classification based almost solely on the performative aspects of Han yüeh-fu. It is also my hope that this distinction between dramatic and narrative modes of presentation will on the one hand provide a framework for the interpretation of individual poems, and on the other contribute to the understanding of pivotal importance of Han yüeh-fu in the development of other modes in later pentasyllabic poetry.
Charles H. Egan, Connecticut College
Orality/literacy theory is based on the work of Milman Parry and Albert Lord, who argued that stock formulas and themes used repeatedly in Homeric epic are evidence of oral composition at the moment of performance; formulas and themes were aids to memory for poets who had no recourse to written language. From this simple root a general theory of orality/literacy has grown; such scholars as Jack Goody, Walter Ong, and Eric Havelock have made broad conclusions not only about poetic art in pre literate and literate cultures, but also about social and political structure, psychology and cognitive development. Some of the specific claims are extreme: literacy made possible democracy, rational and philosophical thought, and even the concept of selfhood. Although the vast majority of these seminal orality/literacy studies focused on archaic and classical Greece, it was held that the invention of written language transforms all cultures in predictable ways. Broadly speaking, the 'literate state-of mind' was thought to destroy and replace the 'oral state of mind,' although a transitional period of mutual influence was considered possible.
In the last decade, the universal nature of orality/literacy conclusions has been challenged by scholars like Brian Street and Rosalind Thomas, who have argued that the implications of literacy are heavily dependent on existing social habits and beliefs. A welcome phenomenon has been the burgeoning of studies of the actual effects of literacy in different places; particularly valuable are William Harris' work in medieval English documents, and Bruno Gentili's research on short love lyrics by literate ancient Greek poets that show the influence of oral formulas. Such studies focus on the subtle interplay of oral and literate language, but don't seriously challenge either the original Parry/Lord thesis or the general theory of orality/literacy, as they can be categorized as studies of the 'transitional' period.
Ruth Finnegan proposes starting again from the beginning: oral poetry. She advocates a broad definition, focusing on the literal meaning of "oral" and on performance. She subjects the Parry/Lord thesis to intense scrutiny; she concludes that although the thesis has the advantage of allowing the oral poet the latitude of individualizing traditional materials at the moment of performance by means of the mental manipulation of memorized oral formulas (thus we are no longer bedeviled by the problem of fixed and correct texts for oral works), it is undercut by the fact that oral formulaic style is not necessarily a sign of oral composition-often written poems use formulaic language as well, or what we consider 'oral poetry' can actually be based on a written text, or dictated to a literate assistant, or edited later. Following Finnegan's lead, David Shive in Naming Achilles has reviewed the formulas for naming in Homeric epic, and has concluded that Parry was overly simplistic because he looked only at nominative epithets; when formulas from other cases (genitive, dative, and so on) are included, the complexity of choices open to the oral poet becomes evident. The process of oral composition is thus not so different from literate composition as had been assumed.
With all of the controversy over orality/literacy, it behooves us to be very careful applying the theory to the Chinese context. At the same time, Chinese materials are potentially valuable to the discussion, because the nature of Chinese makes the distinction between oral and literate language more clear than in languages with alphabets. Chinese characters are not records of spoken words, but instead are symbols for words. Thus the classical written language was allowed an independent development from the spoken language, which resulted in distinct grammatical patterns, vocabulary usage, and rhetorical style. The demarcation between oral and written language is especially evident when oral song and written poetry are compared: scholar poets deliberately avoided any usage that appeared colloquial, including repetition, grammatical function words, and at times even semantic continuity.
Selected orality/literacy techniques are useful for studying the hundreds of pentasyllabic quatrains from the Six Dynasties period, which divide into distinct 'colloquial' and 'literary' styles. The former are anonymous love songs in the yüeh-fu categories of Chiang-nan Wu sheng (wu songs of the Chiang nan region), Ching ch'u hsi sheng (western songs from Ching and Ch'u), and ku chiao heng ch'ui ch'ü (songs accompanied by drum, horn, and transverse flute); while the latter are shih quatrains by scholar poets.
Colloquial style songs correspond very closely to the descriptions of oral poetry propounded by orality/literacy adherents, with the exception that they are only four lines long. All are highly formulaic compositions utilizing a narrative mode. Analysis of linguistic elements is particularly helpful in indicating oral origins; the songs are characterized by strong syntax, a use of first and second person pronouns, and puns. Most tellingly, a continual use of the linguistic categories of deixis and modality gives the impression of direct speech. Deixis includes words and expressions that are ambiguous without specific knowledge of the context of the speech act (for example, "Bring that over here."). Modality shows subjectivity of expressions, as in inferences, conditionals, imperatives, and so on. Both deixis and modality imply a speaker, and both are rare in Six Dynasties scholar poetry.
Literary style quatrains, like longer contemporary shih poetry, are in a descriptive mode, aiming towards what the early critic Chung Jung (fl. 502-509) calls ch'iao kou hsing ssu (artful structure and descriptive similitude). Such poems create a vibrant and visual verbal texture (often through parallelism), but maintain a somewhat neutral emotional stance, because declarative statements dominate: poets generally avoided linguistic elements that implied subjectivity.
A small number of quatrains appear to merge the two styles; in such cases the first couplet is generally a declarative statement for descriptive purposes, and the second is a modal statement for expressive purposes. These hybrid poems can be considered the real predecessors of the mainstream late-Six Dynasties and T'ang wu chüeh.
The two Six Dynasties quatrain styles, and the interplay between them, offer an unusual perspective on orality/literacy ideas and on the development of Chinese poetry. It is unlikely that four line colloquial style songs used formulas as aids to the poet's memory; and since China invented literacy well over a millennium before these songs became popular, it is even more unlikely that they are 'transitional' works between orality and literacy. I would argue instead they are the result of a tradition of public performance; the emotional and subjective tone was effective for a singer whose goal was to pluck the heartstrings of a live audience, and the strong grammatical links, formulaic language, and simple repetitive themes were tailored to an audience that might have had trouble understanding classical poetry read aloud. Literary quatrains were superior at visual description and elegant phrasing, but it was not until elements of colloquial songs were adopted that the pentasyllabic quatrain genre attained its potential. This was neither the first nor the last time that scholar-poets turned to the folk tradition in the creation of new genres.
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