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河 岳 英 灵 集 ) 31 states that “the diction of Cen Shen's poetry is startling, his form strong and energetic;
his meaning is also startling”, 32 an assessment which over a thousand years later would be cited as a
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“precise and appropriate comment” (jingdangzhilun 精 当 之 论 ) from which to research the unusual
and strange in Cen Shen's frontier poetry. Within the same era as Yin Fan's anthology, Du Fu 杜 甫
(712-770), in the opening of his “A Meipi Lake Song” (“Meipi xing” 渼 陂 行 ), refers to the attraction
Cen Shen, and apparently his brothers, too, had for the strange and extraordinary, though specifically
what kind of peculiarities and in which medium is left vague and unspoken:
岑 参 兄 弟 皆 好 奇 The brothers Cen have a passion for wonders,
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携 我 远 来 游 渼 陂 And took me to visit Meipi far away. 35
(lines 1-2)
Comments on Cen Shen's “qi” 奇 come closer to referring to Cen Shen's frontier poetry with the Qing
清 dynasty (1644-1911) poet and scholar Shen Deqian's 沈 德 潜 (1673-1769) laconic review of Cen
Shen in his anthology Selections of Tang Poetry (Tangshi biecai 唐 诗 别 裁 ) in which, like Yin Fan over
nine hundred years earlier, he writes that Cen Shen is able to compose poems with wondrous language,
though adds that the poet is also especially skilled at writing frontier poems. 36
Riding this ancient momentum, modern criticism has continued to support the intimacy between
Cen Shen's frontier works and “qi” 奇 . These investigations are able to exceed the length of the single
31 Written in 753. “Seven of Cen's poems are included in Yin Fan's Heyueyinglingji...[But since Yin Fan was] governed by
a taste for expressions of remorse by frustrated literati, [he] did not select from the frontier works for which Cen Shen
[was] to become best known. The seven poems by Cen Shen [in the anthology] either...celebrate... the life of retirement
or are songs about life's brevity...”. See Marie Chan, Cen Shen, pp. 112-113.
32 “ 参 诗 语 奇 , 体 峻 ; 意 亦 造 奇 ”. See Yin Fan 殷 璠 , Heyueyinglingji 河 岳 英 灵 集 [ 中 ], p. 1 in SKQS. The translation of
the quote is an adaptation of Marie Chan, Cen Shen, p. 113.
33 See the introductory paragraph of Li Jin 李 锦 , “ Yuqi tijun, yi yi zaoqi: qianxi Cen Shen biansaishi de qi 语 奇 体 峻 , 意
亦 造 奇 ': 浅 析 岑 参 边 塞 诗 的 奇 ”Neimenggu shifandaxue xuebao 内 蒙 古 师 范 大 学 学 报 ( 哲 学 社 会 科 学 版 ) No. 5
(2006): 245-248.
34 QTS 216.2261
35 Stephen Owen, tr., The Great Age of Chinese Poetry, p. 191. Marie Chan translates the same lines as “The Cen brothers
relish the strange; they take me afar for an excursion of Meipi”. See Marie Chan, Cen Shen, p. 5.
36 “ 参 诗 能 作 奇 语 , 尤 长 于 边 塞 ”. See Shen Deqian, Tangshibiecai, p. 36.