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alternates between that which the body's senses can apprehend and that which only the mind can
envision, delving into poetry with an eye towards its focalization is certain to yield many new
realizations.
Furthermore, the benefit of approaching these characteristics of a poem within the framework of
focalization is that it affords a steady and consistent theoretical apparatus capable of addressing several
issues through a single analytical system. For example, should one wish to explore “modes of
perception [existing] beyond ordinary human bounds” 1 in Li He's 李 贺 poetry, or the complex
intricacies of focalizer-focalized relations in Chinese landscape poetry (shanshui shi 山 水 诗 ) in which
the scale of focalization and intensity of the focalizer's psychological facet often fluctuate in tandem
with levels of subjectivity in the experience of nature itself, the theory of focalization has a well
stocked toolkit to assist reader and researcher alike. As with the uncovering of concordant patterns of
focalization in Cen Shen's frontier poetry, equipping oneself with a model of focalization and actively
entering other poetic worlds could very well disclose templates of perception in classical Chinese
poetry heretofore undiscovered.
1
Robert Ashmore, “Heptasyllabic Regulated Verse (Qiyan Lvshi)” in How to Read Chinese Poetry, pp. 181-198,
especially p. 189.