View/Open - University of Victoria
View/Open - University of Victoria
View/Open - University of Victoria
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Analyzing Cen Shen's frontier poetry with attention to the poet-narrators' modes and facets <strong>of</strong><br />
focalization invites an opportunity to appreciate the mechanics <strong>of</strong> perception operating in the poetry,<br />
both at the level <strong>of</strong> what is perceived and how the world <strong>of</strong> the poem is perceived. Such a reading<br />
immediately, intimately and sensually draws the reader into experiencing a poetic space <strong>of</strong>ten lost in<br />
allegorical or biographically driven exegeses. While certainly worthwhile angles <strong>of</strong> approach in their<br />
own right, the traditional motivation <strong>of</strong> “reading the poem to know the poet”, for instance, <strong>of</strong>ten<br />
neglects explicating the subtleties involved in the poet-narrator's process <strong>of</strong> conveying the world <strong>of</strong> the<br />
poem, and at times his own emotional state through such conveyances, and chooses instead to devote<br />
attention towards identifying the product – the poet's supposed feelings and attitudes – <strong>of</strong> perceptual<br />
processes and not the manner <strong>of</strong> each process itself. But when an exegetical effort is made, as has been<br />
done in the second part <strong>of</strong> this thesis, to look at both emerging patterns <strong>of</strong> perception repeated across<br />
different texts, and how in some instances (as discussed in chapter six) acts <strong>of</strong> perception themselves<br />
bespeak certain emotional states, the pleasure <strong>of</strong> reading the multifaceted processes <strong>of</strong> perception itself<br />
within the poems becomes possible while a stronger evidential foundation also forms for arguing a<br />
particular mindset <strong>of</strong> the poet-narrator as communicated through a poem's focalization.<br />
200<br />
Possibilities<br />
In short, this thesis began with a discussion in chapters one through three <strong>of</strong> the historical,<br />
literary and experiential factors involved in the evolution <strong>of</strong> frontier poetry during the Tang period, and<br />
then refined its analysis to revealing intertextual patterns <strong>of</strong> focalization in a selection <strong>of</strong> Cen Shen's<br />
frontier verse. The theoretical model used in this thesis to investigate focalization in Cen Shen's poetry<br />
may have further applications when researching the relationship between perceiving agents (focalizers)<br />
and the perceived (focalized) in poems concerned with perception itself. Whether it is poems replete<br />
with shifts between imaginary and ordinary modes <strong>of</strong> perception, or works where the world described