View/Open - University of Victoria

117
exemplification of “qi” ( 奇 ) in Cen Shen's frontier verse.
Balancing discussion of the “qi” ( 奇 ) quality of the poems' existents are essays that offer
comments on issues surrounding the odd manner in which the poet-narrator at times perceives the
43
northwestern lands of Tang China. For example, Li Jin's 李 锦 claims that Cen Shen's aesthetically
orientated vision, one quite distinct from Gao Shi's politically motivated gaze in its sensitivity towards
discrepancies between northern and southern climes, is responsible, along with the very strangeness of
the frontier's natural and human sights, for the “unusual” (qi 奇 ) hue of Cen Shen's frontier poetry.
With a perceptual apparatus that could sustain attention to one attribute of the frontier landscape while
remaining attuned to miniscule fluctuations in its behaviour, 44 the “poet”, according to Li, displays a
unique and novel (xinqi 新 奇 ) way of perceiving the borderland setting rarely encountered in poems of
the same subgenre. 45
Held By the Prefect of Jiuquan” 酒 泉 太 守 席 上 醉 后 作 , and “Song: Prefect Tian's Lovely Lady Dances the Northern
Twirl Dance Like a Lotus Flower” 田 使 君 美 人 如 莲 花 舞 北 旋 歌 , all of which have been referred to in this thesis. Liao
Li 廖 立 also notes that the “ 奇 ”(qi) of Cen Shen's frontier environment is realized in images of culinary and domicile
decor, domestic entities which were difficult, if not impossible, to encounter in central China, and that in the poems also
exist within an equally uncommon physical terrain. See Liao Li 廖 立 , “Censhen biansaishi de fengege tese 岑 参 边 塞 诗
的 风 格 特 色 ”in Liao Li 廖 立 , Censhen shiji zhuzuokao 岑 参 事 迹 著 作 考 (Zhengzhou: Zhongzhou guji chubanshe 中
州 古 籍 出 版 社 , 1997), pp. 259-272, especially p. 268.
43 Li Jin, “ Yuqitijun, yiyizaoqi”, passim.
44 Li Jin cites images of frigidity in “Ballad of Running Horse River: Presented Upon Sending Off the Army on a Western
Campaign” (“Zoumachuanxing fengsong chushi xizheng” 走 马 川 行 奉 送 出 师 西 征 ) as examples of such keen
perceptual precision: “Horse coats covered in snow and steaming sweat, dappled spots like linked coins suddenly turn
back into ice, inside the army tent the inkstone's water for writing documents denouncing the enemy has frozen” (the
second line is based on Stephen Owen, tr., in An Anthology of Chinese Literature p. 468.. 马 毛 带 雪 汗 气 蒸 , 五 花 连 钱 旋
作 冰 , 幕 中 草 檄 砚 水 凝 . See CSJJZ, p. 148.
45 Dai Weihua 戴 伟 华 ascribes this seeming search for the new and strange to Cen Shen's immersion in a special (i.e. noncentral
Chinese) physical and cultural environment. Regarding Cen Shen's sharp observational skills, Dai suggests that
the natural scenery surrounding Cen Shen's early days of semi-retirement, and rendered into verse in many of his prefrontier
poems, helped to enhance his ability to note the subtle details and minutiae of the northwestern frontier. See Dai
Weihua 戴 伟 华 , “Lun Cen Shen biansaishi dute fengge xingcheng de yuanyin 论 岑 参 边 塞 诗 独 特 风 格 形 成 的 原 因 ”
Wenxueyichan 文 学 遗 产 1997.4, pp. 27-35, especially pp. 28-29. Chen Jing's 陈 静 brief analysis of Cen Shen's “Song
of White Snow: Sending Off Administrative Official Wu on His Return to the Capital” 白 雪 歌 送 武 判 官 归 京 also notes
how Cen Shen implements graded levels of detail as a means of expanding perception of the highly unusual (qiyi 奇 异 )
frontier environment . See Chen Jing 陈 静 , “Shenqi zhuangli de biansai fengguang, yuwei wuqiong de songbie
changjing 神 气 壮 丽 的 边 塞 风 光 , 余 味 无 穷 的 送 别 场 景 ”Caizhi 才 智 2011.4, p. 179.