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