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ordinary mode of focalization. The smouldering “coals of yin and yang” (yinyang tan 阴 阳 炭 ) the
“Creator workman” (zaohua wei gong 造 化 为 工 ) manipulating these coals, and the “hidden fires of the
furnace of Heaven and Earth” (yin huo qian shao tiandi lu 阴 火 潜 烧 天 地 炉 ) are the allusive lenses
through which the poet-narrators focalize an invisible, ubiquitous sub-thematic heat. In tandem with
ordinary modes of perceptual focalization, these allusive lenses are able to surpass the limits of the eyes
and skin and focalize a heat emanating from Fire Mountain and Host Lake as the thermal imagery of
Jia Yi's “Rhyme Prose on the Owl”.
. A mild trauma is also associated with perceiving this extra-ordinary heat. The rhetorical
questions which infuse the highly imagistic allusions 30 suggest that the poet-narrators are unable to
accept the presence, even existence, of such an intensity of heat. These questions force the language of
the allusions into perceptual and propositional poles. 31 The former imagistic portion functions as the
lens through which the poet-narrators focalize the extra-sensory heat of the Fire Mountain and Hot
Lake themes; this is the perceptual facet of their focalization. The propositional end divulges the
emotions of the poet-narrators, their feelings of doubt, perhaps even awe, that a heat of such magnitude
could exist. These musings reveal aspects of the poet-narrators' psychological facet of focalization,
which are here expressions of shock bordering on disbelief.
5.1.4. A Landscape of Natural Violence
Aside from the five types of lenses 32 the poet-narrators' selected from among their perceptual
facet repertoire to focalize sub-themes of the thermal landscape, as well as the interconnectedness of
30 See the preceding quotes.
31 Kao Yu-kung and Mei Tsu-lin, “Syntax, Diction and Imagery in T'ang Poetry”, Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, Vol.
31 (1971), pp. 49-136, especially pp. 58 and 61.
32 Namely the ocular (perceiving the “height” of the thermal theme), ocular-dermal (“scorching winds of sand and dust”),
dermal (“scorching winds”) and glandular (the ordinary “heat” of Fire Mountain, a heat perceptualized through the act of
sweating), and allusive (perceiving an extrasensory heat).