View/Open - University of Victoria
View/Open - University of Victoria
View/Open - University of Victoria
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125<br />
Prior to mentioning issues surrounding the spatial coordinates <strong>of</strong> focalization, matters<br />
surrounding the “lenses” <strong>of</strong> focalization were introduced. Returning to this aspect, the lenses <strong>of</strong> the<br />
perceptual facet can be understood as operating within one <strong>of</strong> two “modes <strong>of</strong> perception”, the ordinary<br />
and the imaginary. 82 As a way <strong>of</strong> focalizing, the ordinary mode <strong>of</strong> perception encompasses all types <strong>of</strong><br />
real-life focalization, such as vision, audition, touch, smell, taste, and bodily sensation; 83 as for the<br />
focalized itself, the ordinary-mode is inclusive <strong>of</strong> objects which, within the world <strong>of</strong> the poem, exist<br />
outside the focalizer's mind and in the real, shared world. A poetic example <strong>of</strong> the ordinary mode <strong>of</strong><br />
focalization is Li Bai's “Holding a Drink and Asking Questions <strong>of</strong> the Moon” (“Bajiuwenyue” 把 酒 问<br />
月 ), a poem in which the main focalized object, the moon, is focalized through an ocular lens within<br />
the ordinary mode <strong>of</strong> focalization:<br />
青 天 有 月 来 几 时<br />
我 今 停 杯 一 问 之<br />
人 攀 明 月 不 可 得<br />
月 行 却 与 人 相 随<br />
皎 如 飞 镜 临 丹 阙<br />
绿 烟 灭 尽 清 辉 发<br />
但 见 宵 从 海 上 来<br />
84<br />
宁 知 晓 向 云 间 没<br />
How long has there been a moon in the blue sky?<br />
Today I put down my cup and ask this question.<br />
People want to climb the bright moon but they<br />
can't succeed,<br />
It is the moon, however, which moves and follows<br />
the people.<br />
Shining like a flying mirror down upon the cinnabar<br />
palace gate;<br />
Green mists dissipate, a clear sheen radiates.<br />
Only seeing it at night rise up from the ocean,<br />
How can one know <strong>of</strong> it hiding between<br />
the morning clouds?<br />
In these initial eight lines, focalization is undertaken entirely within the ordinary mode, one where the<br />
poet-narrator relies on ordinary sight to focalize an existent (the moon) which can hover and fly within<br />
Jahn, “More Aspects on Focalization”, pp. 98-100.<br />
82 The first mode refers to objects perceived by the senses while the focalizer is conscious and immediately in the world;<br />
the second to objects perceived by the focalizer in recollection, dreams or the imagination. However, I am using the<br />
“ordinary-imaginary” dichotomy to also differentiate “how” a focalizer perceives an object, meaning that a focalizer<br />
might not be dreaming or hallucinating yet still perceive the world as if he were dreaming or hallucinating. See<br />
Manfred Jahn, “More Aspects on Focalization”, p. 89.<br />
83 Ibid., p. 89. In a different essay, Jahn refers to the ordinary mode as “online perception” and the imaginary as “<strong>of</strong>fline<br />
perception” . See Manfred Jahn, “Focalization” in David Herman, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Narrative<br />
(Cambridge: Cambridge <strong>University</strong> Press, 2007), pp. 94-108, especially pp. 99-100.<br />
84 QTS 179.1827