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87<br />
its novelty and perspicacity; it also employs a deeper degree <strong>of</strong> observation that is able to access<br />
aspects <strong>of</strong> the frontier and assimilate them into striking vignettes <strong>of</strong> China's borderland.<br />
In fact, it is in the inclusion <strong>of</strong> such minutiae that the delights <strong>of</strong> High Tang frontier poetry<br />
become especially pronounced. These moments crafted by poets such as Cen Shen dispense with a total<br />
reliance on climate and geography, as well as the neatness <strong>of</strong> the negation/contrast paradigm, in<br />
presenting the northwestern hinterlands, following instead the sights, smells and sounds <strong>of</strong> human<br />
habitation at the limits <strong>of</strong> the Tang empire, phenomena which would be near impossible to fabricate<br />
without the threat <strong>of</strong> unrealistic absurdities infiltrating a poem, to undo caricatures <strong>of</strong> the frontier and<br />
<strong>of</strong>fer a more substantial world without near frenetic reference to its “differences” from central China. 183<br />
By blurring, and not constantly referencing or reinforcing, the border between inner and outer China,<br />
and removing the fright from frontier spaces, Cen Shen, above all other writers <strong>of</strong> the period, managed<br />
to create a moment in the evolution <strong>of</strong> frontier poetry distinguished by fresh descriptions <strong>of</strong> unusual<br />
physical environments which at times seem to familiarize the unfamiliar 184 non-militaristic activities<br />
taking place in army camps and among the local population, a people who in many High Tang frontier<br />
poems in addition to Cen Shen's own would finally come to be released from the strict friend-foe<br />
binary prison common to the subgenre.<br />
Advancements in responses to and descriptions <strong>of</strong> non-Chinese frontier peoples and customs,<br />
183<br />
Descriptions <strong>of</strong> and responses to the frontier landscape and its peoples/customs have been discussed as representing two<br />
<strong>of</strong> the three thematic pillars <strong>of</strong> frontier poetry. In the majority <strong>of</strong> cases, however, these themes are realized in standard and<br />
predictable manners. The frontier landscape, for example, is quite <strong>of</strong>ten an uninviting and desolate, cold place wracked by<br />
violent winds and roiling sands; it is a climate conceived in sharp contrast to the gentler climes <strong>of</strong> central China, an<br />
environment conducive to the integrative tendencies <strong>of</strong> poet and landscape found in landscape poetry (shanshuishi 山 水 诗 ).<br />
Such stock, even hackneyed, representations <strong>of</strong> the frontier were frequently the norm until Cen Shen infused the subgenre<br />
with new thermal variants and complex perspectives <strong>of</strong> the frontier landscape. The same poet, along with a selection <strong>of</strong><br />
other writers <strong>of</strong> the same period, is also responsible for draining conventional responses <strong>of</strong> the frontier poet-narrator to non-<br />
Chinese peoples, their cultural practices and frontier martial life itself. With military service being an alternative to the<br />
<strong>of</strong>ficial examination system in seeking employment and personal success, and not merely a dreary form <strong>of</strong> exile, depictions<br />
<strong>of</strong> army camp life and events <strong>of</strong>ten received a refined treatment in High Tang frontier poetry which exceeded the typical<br />
reaction <strong>of</strong> homesickness and longing for those in central China to include moments <strong>of</strong> curiosity and conviviality during<br />
raucous gatherings and even apathy for the once passionate motives buffeting one to the frontier as the tedium <strong>of</strong> secretarial<br />
or clerical duties slowly set in. See Yan Fuling, “Han-Tang biansaishi zhuti yanjiu”, pp. 16, 177.<br />
184<br />
Li Mei, “Shilun Luo Binwang, Cen Shen biansaishi de wenhua guanzhao”, p. 160.