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frontier are the use of negation of familiar imagery in Chinese poetry 153 and contrasting 154 the frontier
environment with the familiar world of home. The former of these two techniques “permits [the poet]
to introduce... stock images into frontier poetry [which are]... not primarily dictated by visual
immediacy or realistic representation”, 155 thus allowing a means of producing works in the subgenre for
those who could only imagine China's outer climes through the poetic manifestations of other writers.
The result of such a practice is an exclusion of “the startling and strange aspects of the frontier
landscape [as the readers themselves are] seldom...taken...beyond the confines of the familiar”. 156 The
opening of Zhang Jingzhong's 张 敬 忠 (fl. 707) “Frontier Song” (“Bianci” 边 词 ) follows this procedure
of describing a place in terms of what it is not:
五 原 春 色 旧 来 迟 Spring scenes are always late in Wuyuan, 157
二 月 垂 杨 未 挂 丝
158
In the second month no budding leaves hang from weeping
willows.
(lines 1-2)
Orthodox images of “Spring” 159 and “willows” 160 are here only illusory wisps, present through their
conspicuous absence and signalling a frontier identified in terms of how it lacks expected vegetative
burgeoning. Li Bai's “Below the Frontier” (“Saixia qu” 塞 下 曲 ) employs a similar mechanism of
negation in the opening four lines of its frontier illustration:
五 月 天 山 雪
Snow on Tian mountain in the fifth month,
153
See the collation of nature imagery on pp. 127-137 of Burton Watson's Chinese Lyricism for how such elements pertain
to Tang poetry. Marie Chan undertakes a similar exercise with a selection of frontier poetry and discovers that with “the
possible exception of the ubiquitous desert and such objects associated with martial life as beacon fires, feathered
dispatches and kettledrums, the frontier poem seldom introduces any image that is totally alien to the Chinese reader;
animal, flora and fauna are taken from the stock imagery” . See Marie Chan, “The Frontier Poems of Ts'en Shen”, p.
425. What will be demonstrated shortly, and later in this thesis, is the exception to such a rule represented by Cen Shen's
cultural and geographic frontier landscape.
154
Li Mei, “Shilun Luo Binwang, Cen Shen biansaishi de wenhua guanzhao”, p. 161.
155
Marie Chan, “The Frontier Poems of Ts'en Shen”, p. 424.
156
Ibid., p. 424.
157
Wuyuan county 五 原 县 in today's Inner Mongolia
158
QTS 75.819.
159
The most frequent season mentioned in Tang poetry. See Burton Watson, Chinese Lyricism, p. 135.
160
After generic “grasses” (cao 草 ) and “reeds” , Marie Chan lists “willow” third in her frequency list of plants found in
Tang frontier poetry. See Marie Chan, “The Frontier Poems of Ts'en Shen”, p. 425.