View/Open - University of Victoria
View/Open - University of Victoria
View/Open - University of Victoria
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138<br />
(“Mission to Jiaohe”, lines 5-6)<br />
Despite the “scorching” (yan 炎 ) similarity <strong>of</strong> the winds in these two poems, their focalization by the<br />
poet-narrators is not completely identical. While both poems' winds have the same thermal<br />
characteristic (scorching), the poet-narrator in “Passing Fire Mountain” limits his focalization to this<br />
one feature while adding information about the quantity <strong>of</strong> the winds and their location, qualifications<br />
which do not enhance the sensuality <strong>of</strong> the wind. But in “Mission to Jiaohe” these “scorching winds”<br />
are focalized as an animated existent, one that “blows sand and dust” (chui sha'ai 吹 沙 埃 ). Juxtaposed<br />
as such, the “scorching winds” <strong>of</strong> “Passing Fire Mountain” manifest vaguely and without any<br />
prominent visual clues, a result <strong>of</strong> the poet-narrator only using the body's skin as a dermal lens to “see”<br />
the thermal quality <strong>of</strong> the winds and then quantify them as “many” (duo 多 ). In “Mission to Jiaohe”, an<br />
ocular dimension is added to the dermal aspect <strong>of</strong> the poet-narrator's manner <strong>of</strong> focalization to form an<br />
ocular-dermal lens. This double manner <strong>of</strong> focalizing strengthens the perspicuity <strong>of</strong> the Fire Mountain<br />
winds. With sand and dust ( 沙 埃 ) now blended into the winds through their act <strong>of</strong> blowing ( 吹 ), the<br />
initial thermal “scorching” (yan 炎 ) quality, a characteristic apprehended by the dermal portion <strong>of</strong> the<br />
ocular-dermal lens, joins with a visual quality focalized through the ocular angle <strong>of</strong> the poet-narrator's<br />
ocular-dermal lens to yield a perceptually more intense wind.<br />
Even with the Fire Mountain theme <strong>of</strong> “Passing Fire Mountain” and “Mission to Jiaohe” broken<br />
down into sub-themes <strong>of</strong> height and scorching winds, qualities <strong>of</strong> Fire Mountain focalized by the poetnarrators<br />
through ocular, dermal and ocular-dermal lenses, there still remains another sub-theme to be<br />
focalized by both poet-narrators: the heat itself <strong>of</strong> Fire Mountain. In order to perceptualize this attribute<br />
<strong>of</strong> the mountain, the poet-narrators do not merely comment that “it is hot here”; instead, they focalize