Chinese poetic criticism has a long if somewhat erratic history, but in terms of sheer volume of output it can be said to have reached full bloom only in the Sung dynasty. The earliest material that in any way resembles literary criticism consists of scattered pronouncements in Chou dynasty documents on the didactic purpose of poetry, or the interpretation of poems in the Chou dynasty anthology of poetry, Shih ching (Book of odes) on moralistic grounds. Thus we find in the Shang shu (Book of history) the famous pronouncement: ‘Poetry is an expression of the will; singing is a chanting...

The Comments in theJen-chien tz’u-hua can be grouped roughly into expressions of Wang Kuo-wei’s own theories of poetry and his praise or blame of various traditional approaches to poetry in China. Both aspects represent a blending of Chinese and Western concepts, thus reflecting the two strains in his educational development. Raised at the end of the nineteenth century in the Confucian tradition, Wang Kuo-wei broke away in 1898 from the confining rigours of classical studies to start a new life centred in Western learning. This life began in Shanghai where, for the next two years, he studied at the Tung-fang...

‘Each age has a literature distinctive to it: the sao of Ch’u, the fu of Han, the parallel style of the Six Dynasties, the shih of T’ang, the tz’u of Sung, and the ch’ü of Yüan were each the particular literature of their age and later generations were never able to continue them’. So begins the Preface to Wang Kuo-wei’s Sung Yüan hsi-ch’ü k’ao. The epochal nature of Chinese poetry is a theme often repeated in the Jen-chien tz’u-hua, and certainly merits close attention in a study of the history of Chinese poetry. At no time does Wang Kuo-wei imply...

Note: It is a common Chinese practice to refer to a man in many different ways and Wang Kuo-wei has not deviated from the custom. He may refer to a poet by his surname, by his tzu, by his hao, or by his official title, sometimes using two different designations in one comment. Since this is confusing to the Western reader I have taken the liberty of making all references uniform by using each man's surname and ming.

1 The most important element in a consideration of tz’u is ching-chieh. If a tz’u has ching-chieh it will naturally achieve a...

65¹ I like best of all in Chiang K’uei's tz’u just two lines: In Huai-nan a brilliant moon chills the thousand peaks. I returned in the darkness but there was no one to care.²

66 Discussions of alliteration (shuang-sheng) and assonance³ (tieh-yün) flourished during the Six Dynasties period and T’ang writers still made extensive use of them. But from Sung times on interest in them gradually declined to the point where no one actually understood what they were all about. During the Ch’ien-lung and Chia-ch’ing periods my fellow-townsman, Chou Ch’un, wrote Tu shih shuang-sheng tieh-yün p’u k’uo lüeh (Comprehensive list...

112¹ Concerning [Huang-fu Sung’s] tz’u, Huang Sheng praised his two tz’u to the tune of ‘Che te hsin’² as displaying keen insight.³ I feel they cannot be compared with his two tz’u to the tune of ‘Yi Chiang-nan’,⁴ which have a feeling and flavour both deep and lingering; and I place them above the tz’u in that tune written by Po Chü-yi and Liu Yü-hsi.⁵

113 Wei Chuang’s tz’u show depth of emotion and artistry in diction. Though the overall pattern may not come up to that of Li Yü and Feng Yen-ssu, he must be placed above Wen T’ing-yün....