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Since it is early and Henry is rather groggy, Wang Wei will step in to demonstrate ambient focalization<br />
with the poem “Arriving at the Frontier on a Mission” (“Shi zhi saishang” 使 至 塞 上 ):<br />
单 车 欲 问 边<br />
With a single coach I'll visit the frontier,<br />
属 国 过 居 延 And <strong>of</strong> client kingdoms, pass by Juyan. 74<br />
征 蓬 出 汉 塞<br />
Voyaging tumbleweed 75 leaves the passes <strong>of</strong> Han,<br />
归 雁 入 胡 天 A home bound goose enters Tartar skies. 76<br />
大 漠 孤 烟 直<br />
Great desert: one column <strong>of</strong> smoke stands straight;<br />
长 江 落 日 圆<br />
Long river: the setting sun hangs round.<br />
77<br />
萧 关 逢 侯 吏 At Xiao ramparts 78 I met a mounted messenger –<br />
79<br />
都 护 在 燕 然 “The Grand Marshall is now at Mount Yanran”. 80<br />
124<br />
The middle couplets <strong>of</strong> Wang Wei's poem exhibit two directions <strong>of</strong> focalization functioning in contrast<br />
with one another. In the second couplet, the poet-narrator focalizes frontier existents from a horizontal<br />
spacial coordinate, which in line three follows the level ground (the path <strong>of</strong> the tumbleweed) and in line<br />
four traverses across the sky (the goose). As for the third couplet, focalization <strong>of</strong> the frontier shifts to a<br />
vertical pole whose fifth line focalized rises (the smoke) and sixth line falls (the setting sun).<br />
Furthermore, the existents <strong>of</strong> lines three and four occupy a space nearer the poet-narrator than those <strong>of</strong><br />
five and six, adding a dichotomy <strong>of</strong> closeness and distance to the horizontal-vertical opposition.<br />
Despite their brevity, these two lines are unhooked from a single, stable focalization; the spatial<br />
coordinates <strong>of</strong> their existents are focalized from multiple angles on a scale <strong>of</strong> ambient, rather than strict,<br />
focalization. 81<br />
single coordinate.<br />
74 “Juyan refers to both a river and a client state, but the term is used here less for geographical accuracy than to echo the<br />
exploits <strong>of</strong> the great Han general Huo Qubing 霍 去 病 who passed Juyan when he achieved a great victory”. See<br />
Stephen Owen, The Great Age <strong>of</strong> Chinese Poetry, p. 336.<br />
75 “A set metaphor for the traveller, torn from his 'roots' and carried here and there by the vagaries <strong>of</strong> chance”. Ibid., p. 336.<br />
76 Meaning “frontier sky”.<br />
77 The QTS notes that 吏 (li, petty <strong>of</strong>ficial) has the textual variant 骑 (ji, rider <strong>of</strong> a horse).<br />
78 South-east <strong>of</strong> today's Guyuan county 固 源 县 , Ningxia 宁 夏 province.<br />
79 QTS 126.1279.<br />
80 Stephen Owen, tr., The Great <strong>of</strong> Chinese Poetry, p. 33.<br />
81 The remaining two stations on Jahn's scale <strong>of</strong> focalization, weak and zero focalization, do not occur in Cen Shen's<br />
frontier poems. Briefly, weak focalization is <strong>of</strong> an object without a focalizer, a perceived without any noticeable perceiver.<br />
In zero focalization, object and subject disappear. A random string <strong>of</strong> clauses might suffice as an example. See Manfred