Open-Minded Attitudes of Not Indulging in Tragedies

Analysis of Nineteen Old Poem I and Nineteen Old Poem XV

Yiming Sun 2022.April

Human beings have been thinking about life and death since ancient times, constantly seeking the balance between the sociality and individuality of each person. At the end of the Han Dynasty, when Confucian values were crumbling, wars were continued, and politics was corrupt, Nineteen Old Poems reflect ordinary people's views and attitudes towards life and death. These poems are not only an essential benchmark for the development of five-character poems but also a historical record of the late Han Dynasty. Nineteen Old Poems, whose authors were unknown1, present people's awareness of pursuing self-value and highlight people's open-minded attitude towards life at that time. This essay will analyze Nineteen Old Poem I and Nineteen Old Poem XV respectively, from two major categories. lovesick wife and wanderer, which are two major parts in Nineteen Old Poems according to Zhu Ziqing.2 Although these two poems describe the tragedies of people's lives they show an attitude that one should not indulge in tragedies even though they are struggling with the social turmoil during the Late Han dynasty which made their life full of uncertainty. Nineteen Old Poem I and Nineteen Old Poem XV both express tragedy with double meanings, and both types of people they represent, lovesick wife and wanderer, were aware of their own tragedy. The first tragedy of Poem I is a woman's endless wait for her husband's return in her limited life. The second tragedy is that the woman lost her precious youth while waiting. Also in Poems XV, the first tragedy is that the intellectual in his limited life cannot realize his broad political ideal learnt from Confucianism. The second tragedy is that the darkness of the official election system prevented him from realizing his ambitions. By indicating their open-minded attitudes of not indulging in catastrophes, they narrate the conscious pain of human beings in the late Han Dynasty struggling with the unknown infinity even though their lives are finite.

Firstly, the two poems disclose tragedies from the perspective of characters. Nineteen Old Poems I describes a lovesick wife longing for her distant husband. Nineteen Old Poems XV describes a wanderer who fails to realize his ambition. They are tragic because of objective factors, and they cannot change the result as if fate. The first line of Nineteen Old Poems I, "Keep on going, on and on,3" is repeated two times, which means that the one leaving home was always walking forward, while the woman could only wait at home. "Jun 君" is a respectful name for her husband. As time passed by, the distance between the woman and her husband was only getting longer and longer. Thus, the woman was more and more lonely and her misses and worries accumulated. Since communication was not convenient in ancient times, it was almost impossible to know what had happened to the left-home husband or to trace his travels. This made the wish that two separated people who loved each other would finally reunite, hopeless. This hopelessness lay the foundation of the woman’s tragedy. In the poem, "Ten thousand miles apart" and "each at a corner of the sky4" are not necessarily accurate but vividly capture the woman’s desperate feeling over her wish of reuniting with her husband due to the long distances. This also expresses the author's feelings of sorrow and missing her husband by indicating that the distance between her and her husband is the concept of her whole world. The road is long, and there are many obstacles. The two adjectives in the poem are used together to deepen the reader's understanding of the difficulty of meeting. As a wife, the author expressed her feelings, "Will we ever meet face to face again?5" with interrogative pronouns; she didn’t know how long she would have to wait until she was able to see her lover. This shows her subjective doubt, the pain of separation and the woman's helplessness for not being able to meet, and the tragedy of the separated wife not having the opportunity to meet her husband.

1 Stephen Owen, An Anthology of Chinese Literature: Beginnings to 1911 (New York: W.W. Norton, 1996), 253. 2 Ziqing Zhu and Maoyuan Ma, Zhu Ziqing Ma Maoyuan Shuo Gu Shi Shi Jiu Shou (Shanghai: Shanghai Press, 1999), 16. 3 Owen,Anthology, 253. 4 Ibid. 5 Ibid.

The first sentence of the Nineteen Old Poems XV describes the tragedy of the wanderer. Although people can not outlive a hundred years they "always have cared for a thousand.6" The millennium of worries was more of an exaggeration of the amount of anxiety, which at that time came from the pressure of Confucian social responsibility in traditional education. But the tragedy of the wanderer that he cannot achieve his goal is more caused by the dynasty background at that time. The official election system merely recruited people from upper-class families7. Facing such unfairness, the lower intelligentsia had no choice but to realize their ambitions and strive for fame far from home. At the same time, the oppression of the lower class intellectuals made them hard to survive not only politically but also economically. The lower-class intellectuals doubted whether their political ambitions could ever be realized through their travelling process of fame-seeking. Meanwhile, the lofty mission of caring for the fate of the masses and solving the problems of the masses under orthodox teachings made them hesitate whether it was selfish to focus on self-enjoyment. As time went by, they realized that they had lost almost everything and had not fulfilled their mission, which made their life tragedic.

The two poems demonstrate tragedies through the use of imagery. Due to the repression of the social conditions in the late Han Dynasty, the poets were more likely to express their feelings through natural things around., Thus the use of imagery became more frequent and more representative, which is one of the highlights of the Nineteen Old Poems8. These images are sentimental, setting off the author's tragedy and sober feelings. For Poem I, the author uses natural images such as Turkish Horse, Northwind, Yue Bird, Southernmost Bough, drifting clouds and bright sun. For example, "A Turkish Horse Small to the North Wind, A Yue Bird nests in the Southernmost Bough 9" forms two affective images. On the one hand, the author used north and south to make a geographical contrast, which could deepen the readers' understanding of the distance between the couple. On the other hand, the author used animals as a metaphor for their attachment to each other: just as the Turkish horse growing in the north is attached to the north wind, and the Yue bird growing in the south is attached to building its nest in the south, lovers can feel the unique sense of belonging and attachment when they see each other's letter. It's a sweet expression of a woman's feelings for her lover. In addition, it is also a kind of plaintive indictment, the animals are eager to meet again, and the wife is also hoping that the couple can meet again at some time, which reflects the wife's missing for her husband. Besides the animals, the author also uses a looser sash as a concrete embodiment of the idea of missing her husband. As she waited and missed her husband eagerly for so long, she became emaciated, thus, her clothes were loose. The author used this image to reflect the psychological anxiety and pain caused by the separation that resulted in physical impacts. Moreover, the poem describes the image of clouds covering the sun. Here, the sun refers to the hope of seeing her husband, reflecting the husband's unhesitating pursuit of fame and the author's hard persistence in waiting as her husband left home and separated from her with barely no hope of meeting again.

6 Owen,Anthology, 261. 7 Daniel Hsieh, The Origin and Nature of the "Nineteen Old Poems" (Philadelphia, PA, USA: Dept. of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Pennsylvania, 1998), 62. 8 Graham Sanders, “Yuefu and Old Poems” (Lecture for EAS256H Chinese Literature: Pre-qin to Tang, University of Toronto, Mar 3, 2022). 9 Owen,Anthology, 253. Natural imagery is also applied in Poem XV to express the author’s sad mood. In this poem, the nature imagery used includes daylight, Night, and candle. The poem describes the image of daylight being short and the night long. The bright day here also means hope. For wanderers, the hope of obtaining official positions and riches is temporary, so the daylight is short. Long night refers to the society and the system has been dark for a long time, indicating his distress over such a system. At the same time, the darkness here also reflects the meaning of death, revealing the aging and sadness of the author's mentality. Furthermore, candle refers to another attitude of hedonism towards life, which is different from fighting for fame. Because life without ideal goals is empty and boring, it is unstable and may be extinguished like a candle. However, it still represents another kind of light, another way out for intellectuals.

Although these two poems describe the tragedies of people's lives they show an attitude that one should not indulge in tragedies even though they are struggling with the social turmoil during the Late Han dynasty which made their life full of uncertainty. Starting with the couple's separation, Nineteen Old Poem I describes the distance of segregation and the impossibility of meeting exaggeratedly. After the author used a set of tragic imagery to show her love for her husband and her fear of endless waiting, she used a straightforward but exaggerated statement, "To think of you makes a person old, and the time of year is Suddenly late.10" This statement indicates the helplessness of time is passing away quickly while the sadness of waiting is infinite. As mentioned above, it's almost impossible for the lover to meet again; the wife lost her beauty and youth for the tiny hope of reunion. However, instead of continuously drowning in sadness, she decided to "just eats well and take care11" because she was still optimistic and had hope for the future. All the sufferings mentioned above formed an intense conflict with the open-mind attitude here, reflecting women's perseverance, courage, and optimism in the late Han Dynasty. Instead of self-pity, the wife ate more meals, ended the poem in a relaxed tone, and achieved a rational pursuit of self-recognition and passionate pursuit of love. She was aware of her own tragedy but still had a broad mind.

The plot of Nineteen Old Poem XV begins with the tragedy of wanderers, telling the story of their rebellious mentality of carpe diem in the face of the short life situation under the difficult circumstance of official career material conditions. As time went by, under the inevitable tragedy, intellectuals used natural imagery to express their dissatisfaction with the chaotic society, the corrupt bureaucracies, and the unfair election system, as well as their helplessness to realize their political ambitions of building a harmonious society in which all the ordinary people could enjoy a happy life. The author used the term "fool" to mock the efforts of lower-class intellectuals, including himself, toward this unrealistic goal. Yet, the author explained the changed mindset, from a self-sacrificing intellectual attempting to be the saviour to a self-cherishing recluse that could enjoy "being in time for pleasure.12" This is a bold challenge to Confucian values, breaking the traditional standards of identity, and seeking a new pursuit and speculation of human life meaning. They were not doing nothing by obeying death but by defying it. They had a positive and open-minded attitude while clearly recognizing their own tragedy.

The opposition between finite and infinite is eternal. Life and death, and the values of life, are the subjects of endless human discussion. The attitude to life determines the height of people's thoughts. In the face of tragedy, some people feel sorry for themselves, some give up on themselves, and some desperately want to change. Through the character, image and plot of two poems in the Nineteen Old Poems, we can realize that the generous life attitude of the wanderer and the lovesick woman in the face of tragedy reflects the outlook of the general people at that time. While apparently realizing the Late Han Dynasty and its effect on the uncertainty of their lives, they balanced sensibility and rationality and adjusted the coexistence of social value and personal meaning13. While the authors of the two poems in the Nineteen Old Poems applied various natural imagery to depict their tragic lives in a turmoil society, they still hold an optimistic attitude towards life.

10 Owen,Anthology, 253. 11 Ibid. 12 Owen,Anthology, 261. 13 Hsieh,Origin and Nature,75.

Bibliography

Graham Sanders, “Yuefu and Old Poems” (Lecture for EAS256H Chinese Literature: Pre-qin to Tang, University of Toronto, Mar 3, 2022). Hsieh, Daniel. The Origin and Nature of the "Nineteen Old Poems". Philadelphia, PA, USA: Dept. of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Pennsylvania, 1998. Owen, Stephen. An Anthology of Chinese Literature: Beginnings to 1911. New York: W.W. Norton, 1996. Zhu, Ziqing, and Maoyuan Ma. Zhu Ziqing Ma Maoyuan Shuo Gu Shi Shi Jiu Shou. Shanghai: Shanghai Press, 1999.