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surpassed the frontier proper. Ignoring the diversity of responses to the frontier phenomenon, even if
only as voices appropriated by poets, neglects the heterogeneous and expansive influence the Tang
frontier had on the entirety of its people, effects that overwhelmed the perimeter of the frontier and
spilled into China proper.
Hu concludes that a certain quantity of indefiniteness disturbs the promise of devising a precise
and inviolate definition of “frontier poetry”. So as not to preclude attention to aspects of poetry which
through a “frontier poetry” paradigm illuminate what might otherwise remain obscured, Hu suggests
that so long as a poem relates in some way, directly or indirectly, to the frontier, be it politically,
militarily, culturally, geographically or personally, such a poem has the right to be read as a “frontier
poem” through a frontier poetry paradigm. The consequence is a muddy conceptualization of the
subgenre; the benefit, however, is that frontier poetry cannot be overpowered by any one particular
aspect contributing to its realization.
The reader may recall that Xiao Chengyu's tripartite framework of frontier poetry was utilized
earlier in the thesis in order to assist in elucidating characteristics of such poetry when juxtapositions
with pre-Tang poems were presented and read as precursors to the subgenre as it came to develop
during the Tang. In the same essay 11 from which Xiao's schema was borrowed, an element missing
from Hu's wrestling with key “frontier poetry” characteristics can be inserted into the subgenre debate:
the writers themselves, poets whose names have come to be inscribed with the “frontier” modifier.
Before discussing the classificatory apparatus used to describe frontier poetry's key features as
proposed in his essay, Xiao addresses a number of inherent problems with such a system, one of the
greatest being the misunderstandings and confusion aroused by the moniker “frontier poets”.
Xiao contends that frontier-themed poems can be found in a huge swathe of High Tang poets'
oeuvres, giving the impression that writing such works was de rigeur. Questions then arise as to why a
11
Xiao Chengyu 肖 澄 宇 , “Guan yu Tangdai biansaishi de pingjia ji ge wenti 关 于 唐 代 边 塞 诗 的 评 价 几 个 问 题 ”.