View/Open - University of Victoria
View/Open - University of Victoria
View/Open - University of Victoria
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43<br />
historical displacement (Han allusion) and frontier place names separated, in the world outside <strong>of</strong> the<br />
poem, by hundreds <strong>of</strong> miles are also represented in Wang's series <strong>of</strong> poems; Liu's ghostly presence<br />
testifies not only to the powerful motivation behind Xiao Chengyu's third facet <strong>of</strong> frontier poetry<br />
(poems in which the frontier environment receives sustained treatment) but also to the reach <strong>of</strong><br />
Southern dynasty works and their influence over how the frontier landscape was created in language.<br />
For instance, the summarizing scene in the final line <strong>of</strong> the second <strong>of</strong> Wang's “In the Army” ( 从<br />
军 行 七 首 ) quatrains is replete with an evolved autumnal background <strong>of</strong> astral cold and synesthetic<br />
darkness, a night not <strong>of</strong> darkness visible but one infused with a feeling <strong>of</strong> astronomical distance sitting<br />
motionless between the Great Wall and the moon shining high above. The architectural behemoth's own<br />
being answers the hanging moon on the terrestrial plane by reinforcing notions <strong>of</strong> distance<br />
accompanying the bifurcation <strong>of</strong> interiority and exteriority, home and abroad, along its equally<br />
boundless design. The interminable endlessness <strong>of</strong> the frontier landscape in Liu's poem is limited to the<br />
geographic horizontal plane; Wang's century later piece infuses the frontier's open, non-delineated<br />
space with vertical and emotional aspects <strong>of</strong> separation:<br />
琵 琶 起 舞 换 新 声<br />
总 是 关 山 旧 别 情<br />
撩 乱 边 愁 听 不 尽<br />
111<br />
高 高 秋 月 照 长 城<br />
The pipa starts a dance changing to a new tune,<br />
Always the mountain pass invoking feelings <strong>of</strong> separation.<br />
Cacophony <strong>of</strong> frontier sadness heard on and on,<br />
At great height the autumn moon shines on the Great Wall.<br />
The third work in the seven poem set marries the frontier again to the images <strong>of</strong> distance, decay and<br />
dreariness, characteristics <strong>of</strong> the physical frontier which in Liu's text had yet to reach Wang's rich<br />
condensation:<br />
关 城 榆 叶 早 疏 黄<br />
日 暮 云 沙 古 战 场<br />
Elm leaves at the frontier pass yellow and scatter early,<br />
Sunset, clouds <strong>of</strong> sand, ancient battlefield.<br />
111 QTS 143.1444