Organizer and Chair: Alice Wen-Chuen Cheang, University of Notre Dame
Discussant: Ronald C. Egan, University of California, Santa Barbara
The Chinese tendency to demarcate old age as an important, if not the most important, period in human life seems to have influenced the way in which many poets imaged themselves. This panel aims to discuss the self-presentation in old age of three poets, who all made major contributions to the developing aesthetic of the "aged poet" (shilao) in the Tang and Song. Shan Chou asks when Du Fu came to see himself as "old," what he means by "old," and how his changing relation to his own past is reflected in the many permutations of this self-definition. Xiaoshan Yang explores the tensions in the poems of Bai Juyi's last five years, between the spiritual freedom conferred by retirement and the continued need to discharge material responsibilities, which give depth and complexity to his persona of the carefree old man. Alice Cheang's paper treats the poetry of Su Shi's final exile, in which the poet, using models from the past, consciously tries to create a style to embody the kind of man he wished to become in old age.
Collectively the papers address such questions as: whether there is a perceived connection between aging and moral growth on the one hand and maturity of style on the other; whether certain attributes of character, expressed as stylistic tendencies, come to be associated particularly with an old man's self-portrayal; and what position in a poet's corpus is accorded the works of his old age. In our answers we will distinguish between old age as viewed by the poets themselves and the perception by later readers of this poetically represented old age.
"An Old Man Like Me": Du Fu on Himself
Shan Chou, City University of New York
Du Fu died in his fifty-eighth year (770). By then he had referred to himself as an old man for at least fifteen years. Some of this might just be convention-old at the first sight of gray hair, for instance but at some point convention becomes accurate, both in fact and in self-perception. This paper asks two questions: when did Du Fu consistently start thinking of himself as an old man, and what did "old" mean? There seem to be two classes of answers in the poems, one contemporaneous and one retrospective. The contemporaneous one is reflected in his physical ailments and also parallels the poet's record of his recurrent disappointments and increasing hardships. The retrospective references provide us with interesting insights into how Du Fu viewed his own past over time. Considering both types of evidence, this paper will make some proposals about the typology of old age for poets, as seen in Du Fu's life.
Money Matters: Poetic Image and Domestic Discourse in Bai Juyi's Last Five Years
Xiaoshan Yang, University of Montana
In 841, at the age of seventy sui, Bai Juyi retired permanently from the position of Junior Tutor to the Crown Prince, which was the highest paying job he had ever held. The poems he wrote afterwards generally describe himself as at ease with himself and oblivious of the world at large. His old age is constantly celebrated as the culmination of one of his lifetime ideals, i.e., to combine the spiritual freedom of a hermit with the material comfort provided by a handsome salary.
Beneath this facade of self-complacency, however, Bai Juyi's poems in his twilight years reveal a tension, which results partly from a repressed dissatisfaction with his own political failure but primarily from the pressures of maintaining a large household. Money and domestic economy figure conspicuously, especially in the poems addressed to his relatives, many of whose livelihood depends on his salary, which is cut in half after his retirement. Although Bai Juyi's poetry has always recorded scrupulously his salary ever since he entered public service, those late poems demonstrate in an unprecedented manner the dynamics between the conscious self-imaging of a septuagenarian and the disruptive forces of daily necessities. This paper examines how the domestic discourse in Bai Juyi's late poetry tries to muffle the complaints of the members of his household and how it uses those complaints as foil for the self-representation of a carefree old man.
"A Country for Old Men": Su Shi South of the Mountains
Alice Wen-Chuen Cheang, University of Notre Dame
Su Shi believed that the Confucian Tao comes into being only through the creative endeavor of individuals. Poetry is important in cultivating oneself in the Way, especially during periods of withdrawal from political life, when cultural activities must take the place of more active participation. Self-cultivation is a dominant theme in the poetry of Su Shi's two periods of rustication, in Huangzhou and, late in life, in Lingnan in the far south. In Lingnan this concern is further deepened by his desire to create a poetic style appropriate to the self-portrayal of an old man.
Such a style owes much to earlier poetic models, including Tao Qian, Du Fu and Bai Juyi, but most of all to Confucius, who describes himself as having begun in conscious effort ("at fifteen I set my mind on learning") and ended with effortless ease ("at seventy I could indulge my heart's desire without overstepping the rules"). In aging one approaches the goal of a perfected self, as one gradually sheds the need for external constraints and enters spontaneously into the Way. Old age is therefore the apogee of a man's life, and Su Shi hopes to make the activity-poetic and otherwise-of his old age into his crowning achievement. At their best the Lingnan poems are indeed fit to express an old man verging on enlightenment. Subdued and almost transparently simple, they represent a level of art in which all traces of artfulness have been effaced, so that each poem as it comes into being is a perfect embodiment of the poet himself.