History of chinese poetry

Introduction

Chinese poetry can be divided into three main periods: the early period, characterized by folk songs in simple, repetitive forms; the classical period from the Han dynasty to the fall of the Qing dynasty, in which a number of different forms were developed; and the modern period of Westernized free verse.

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Early Poetry

The Shi Jing (literally "Classic of Poetry", also called "Book of Songs") was the first major collection of Chinese poems, collecting both aristocratic poems (Odes) and more rustic poetry, probably derived from folksongs (Songs).
A second, more lyrical and romantic anthology was the Chu Ci (楚辭 Songs of Chu), made up primarily of poems ascribed to the semi- legendary Qu Yuan (c. 340 BCE- 278 BCE) and his follower Song Yu (fourth century BCE).

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Classical Poetry

During the Han dynasty (206 BCE- CE 220), the Chu lyrics evolved into the fu (賦), a poem usually in rhymed verse except for introductory and concluding passages that are in prose, often in the form of questions and answers; often called a poetical essay (i.e. Robert van Gulik). One of the fine examples of fu is Xi Kang's Qin Fu 《琴賦》, or "Poetical Essay in Praise of the Qin".
From the Han dynasty onwards, a process similar to the origins of the Shi Jing produced the yue fu poems. Again, these were song lyrics, including original folk songs, court imitations and versions by known poets (the best known of the latter being those of Li Bai).
From the second century CE, the yue fu began to develop into shi or classical poetry- the form which was to dominate Chinese poetry until the modern era. These poems have five or seven character lines, with a caesura before the last three characters of each line. They are divided into the original gushi (old poems) and jintishi, a stricter form developed in the Tang dynasty with rules governing tone patterns and the structure of the content. The greatest writers of gushi and jintishi are often held to be Li Bai and Du Fu respectively.
Towards the end of the Tang dynasty, the ci lyric became more popular. Most closely associated with the Song dynasty, ci most often expressed feelings of desire, often in an adopted persona, but the greatest exponents of the form (such as Li Houzhu and Su Shi) used it to address a wide range of topics.
As the ci gradually became more literary and artificial after Song times, the san qu, a freer form, based on new popular songs, developed. The use of san qu songs in drama marked an important step in the development of vernacular literature.

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Later Classical Poetry

After the Song dynasty, both shi poems and lyrics continued to be composed until the end of the imperial period, and to a lesser extent to this day. However, for a number of reasons, these works have always been less highly regarded than those of the Tang dynasty in particular. Firstly, Chinese literary culture remained in awe of its predecessors: in a self-fulfilling prophecy, writers and readers both expected that new works would not bear comparison with the earlier masters. Secondly, the most common response of these later poets to the tradition which they had inherited was to produce work which was ever more refined and allusive; the resulting poems tend to seem precious or just obscure to modern readers. Thirdly, the increase in population, expansion of literacy, wider dissemination of works through printing and more complete archiving vastly increased the volume of work to consider and made it difficult to identify and properly evaluate those good pieces which were produced. Finally, this period saw the rise of vernacular literature, particularly drama and novels, which increasingly became the main means of cultural expression.

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Modern Poetry

Modern Chinese poems usually do not follow any prescribed pattern. Poetry was revolutionized after the May Fourth Movement when writers try to use vernacular styles closer to what was being spoken rather than previously prescribed forms. Early twentieth-century poets like Xu Zhimo, Guo Moruo and Wen Yiduo sought to break Chinese poetry from past conventions by adopting Western models; for example Xu consciously follows the style of the Romantic poets with end-rhymes.
In the post-revolutionary Communist era, poets like Ai Qing used more liberal running lines and direct diction, which were vastly popular and widely imitated.
In the contemporary poetic scene, the most important and influential poets are the group known as Misty Poets, who use allusion and hermetic references. The most important Misty Poets include Bei Dao, Gu Cheng, Duo Duo, and

The Tang Dynasty

In 581 Yang Jian, prime minister of the Northern Zhou, seized power and established the Sui Dynasty. Eight years later he unified China after he conquered Chen in the south, thus putting an end to the period of division which lasted more than three centuries.

His son, who succeeded him, was a corrupt and evil emperon. His despotic rule was hated by the people, and peasant uprisings started. The dynasty was overthrown only 37 years after it was founded.

Li Yuan, a military commander in Taiyuan, Shanxi raised an army and occupied Chang'an. In 618 he founded the Tang Dynasty. His chief advisor was his second son, Li Shimin. In a power struggle Shimin killed his two brothers; his father had to five him the throne.

This ambitious and capable young man turned out to be one of the wisest emperors that ruled China. He was later called Tang Tai Zong. The 130 years from his time to the Time of Tang Xuan Zong was the heyday not only of the Tang Dynasty, but of the whole feudal period of China. The Tang emperors ruled over a vast area, larger than /china had been during the Han Dynasty. China was then the largest and strongest country in the world; it was also economically and culturally the most advanced. In Chang'an, the capital, there were over 300,000 households, with a great number of merchants, traders, scholars and students from foreign countries. Chinese culture, including philosophy, and political, legal and economic systems, had a far-reaching influence, especially in East Asia. At the same time, foreign products and culture were introduced into China.

In 755 the revolt of An Lushan and Shi Siming broke out. Their troops entered Chang'an, and Xuan Zong fled to Sichuan in a hurry. This was the beginning of the decline of the Tang Dynasty. But the dynasty,

Li Bai

Li Bai (701-762) was born in Suiye in Central Asia. His ancestors had been banished there by the Sui rulers. At five he moved to Sichuan with his father, who was probably a rich merchant. When young, he studied not only Confucian classics, but works of other schools. After 20 he first travelled for and wide in Sichuan, and then he started a long journey to Central, East and North China. He did not sit for the civil service examination, for he looked down upon it. But he wished to become an official. When he was 42, he was recommended to Tang Xuan Zong, who ordered him to go to Chang'an. He stayed there for three years and was bitterly disappointed. During the years of An Lushan's rebellion, he joined the staff of Prince Li Lin. Later, because Li Lin tried to seize power and failed, Li Bai was exiled to Yelang. On his way to Yelang he was freed by an amnesty. He went to East China and died at 62 in Dangtu, Anhui.

He wrote as many as 900 poems. Some of them describe the life of the people; some describe the magnificent scenery he saw; others express his own wishes and sorrows. His poems are characterized by unusual imagination and free and direct expression of feelings. That is why he is called a romantic poet.

At dawn I left Baidi towering in the midst of colorful clouds,
And reached Jiangling a thousand Li away in a day.
The screams of monkeys on either bank went on and on,
While my light boat passed by ten thousand hills.

Satisfaction and admiration will fill our hearts when we read such beautiful and dashing lines. They are so colorful, so musical, and so impressive. The image in the poem-a boat rushing toward down the gorges-is just a description of the poet himself.

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Du Fu

Du Fu (712-770) was born in Gongxian, Henan. The son of an official, he was interested in learning when he was young. "I read ten thousand volumns until they were worn out," he said. At 20 he started his 10-year-long travels from north to south. At 35 he went to Chang'an, where he stayed for ten years without getting any position in the government. His disappointment made him look at reality and see the sharp contrast between the life of the upper classes and that of the ordinary people. He began to write poems about the sufferings of the poor. After the An Lushan rebellion began, he had a hard time as a refugee, but this brought him closer to the people. His well-known poems describing three officials and three departures were written during this period. In 759 he went to Chengdu. After wandering in Sichuan, Hubei and Hunan for more than ten years, he finally died on board a small boat on his way from Changsha to Yueyang.

Deep sympathy for the people is one of the main characteristics of Du Fu's poems. In this respect he surpassed all earlier poets. His poems have been called "poetic history", for they reflect the political and military situation of his time, and the life and miseries of the people. He pushed the tradition of realism in poetry to a new level.

Here are the first six lines from the poem "The Official of Shihao":

At dusk I came to Shihao Village to stay overnight,
And heard an official trying to catch somone after dark.
The old man in the house climbed over the wall and fled,
Leaving the old woman to face the official at the door.
Shouting loudly, the official was very angry;
Sobbing bitterly, the woman was full of sorrow.

Du Fu exposes the Shameless luxury of the ruling class in these famous lines:

Behind the red doors wine and meat stink,
But on the roads lie men frozen to death.

Li Bai and Du Fu are among the greatest poets that China has produced. Their poems have given the Chinese people boundless inspiration and have been taken as models of poetry. Han Yu, also a famous Tang poet, wrote: "The works of Li and Du are there; their brilliant light will shine for ever."

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Bai Juyi

Two years after Du Fu died, another great poet was born. Bai Juyi (772-846), the son of a petty official, was born in Xinzheng, Henan. He spent his youth wandring about to escape wars, and was often cold and hungry. He was successful in civil service examinations, became an official, and worked in the central government for about 15 years. Then because he was disliked by those in power, he was sent ot work in Jiangzhou (now Jiujiang), Hangzhou and Suzhou. Later he moved to Luoyang, where he died at the age of 75.

Bai Juyi wrote more poems than any other Tang poet-nearly 3,000. Many of them deal with important social and political problems, and show signs of Du Fu's influence. He also wrote many lyrics expressing his personal feelings. His two long narrative poems-"The Everlasting Sorrow" and "The Song of a Pipa Player"-are among the best known. Many of his poems have deep meaning, and they are written in simple and plain language, which ordinary readers can understand.

The following are a few lines from "The Old Man with a Broken Arm":

In the south and in the north of my village people wept sadly;
Children were parting from parents and husbands from wives.
Everyone said that in battles against the southern tribes,
Of ten thousand men sent there not one returned.

The poem clearly shows the poet's opposition to battles against border tribes, which caused miseries to both Han and tribal poeple.

In "The Song of a Pipa Player" there are these lines describing the beautiful music produced by the Pipa:

Strong and loud, the thick string sounded like a sudden shower;
Weak and soft, the thin string whispered in your ear.
When strong and weak, loud and soft sounds were mixed,
They were like big and tiny pearls falling on a jade plate.

History of Urdu poetry

by Anisur Rahman

Urdu language and literature, beyond their spatial confines, have been more heard of than read. With the publication of some notable translations, some of them in the recent past, a new literary culture seems to be emerging from the canons of the old. Modern Urdu poetry, of which this is the first comprehensive selection, has its own tradition of the new. It has developed through stages of a variegated literary history. This history has absorbed both the native and non- native elements of writing in Arabic and Persian, and the Urdu language has survived through several crises and controversies. Some of these are related to its growth and development, its use by the British to divide the Hindus and the Muslims. it estrangement in the land of its birth following the Partition of India and its interaction with Hindi once akin but now an alien counterpart. Even with the extinction of those generations of Sikhs in Punjab, Muslims in Bengal and Hindus elsewhere, who nurtured the language with love and for whom it was the mark of a cultivated man, the language has survived and developed. It is now the cultural legacy of India and the adopted national identity of Pakistan, and significant new literature has emerged in both countries.

Literary centre : Deccan, Delhi and Lucknow

Literature in Urdu grew at three different centres: Deccan, Delhi and Lucknow. As it happened, the Deccan emerged as the earliest centre, even though the language had first developed in northern India, as a result of an interesting linguistic interaction between the natives and the Muslim conquerors from Central Asia, who settled there in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, The period stretching roughly from the middle of the fourteenth centuries to the middle of the eighteenth produce a number of poets. They are claimed both by Urdu and Hindi literary historians, but Quli Qutub Shah (1565-1611) is generally acknowledged as the first notable poet, like Chaucer is English, with a volume of significant poetry in a language later named Urdu. He was followed by several others, among whom Wali Deccani (1635-1707) and Siraj Aurangabadi ( 1715-1763) deserves special mention. Delhi emerged as another significant centre with Mirza Mohammad Rafi Sauda (1713-80), Khwaja Mir Dard (1721-85), Mir Taqi Mir (1722-1810), Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib (1797-1869) and Nawab Mirza Khan Dagh (1831-1905). It reached its height of excellence during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Lucknow made its way as the third important centre with Ghulam Hamdani Mushafi (1725-1824), Inshallah Khan Insha (1757-1817), Khwaja Haidar Ali Atish (1778-1846), Iman Baksh Nasikh (1787-1838), Mir Babr Ali Anis (1802-74) and Mirza Salamat Ali Dabir (1803-1875). These literary capitals, where the classical tradition developed, had their individual stylistic and thematic identities, but broadly it may be said that the ghazal (love lyric) reached its zenith with Mir and Ghalib, qasida (panegyric) with Sauda, mathnawi(romance) with Mir Hasan and marthiya (elegy) with Anis and Dabir.

Hali and Iqbal : new poetry in Urdu

In the period that followed, and before the launching of the Progressive Writers Movement in the 30s, mention should be made of Altaf Husain Hali (1837-1914) and Mohammad Iqbal (1877-1938). Hali was a poet of the newer socio-cultural concerns and advocated 'natural poetry' that had an ameliorative purpose. His Musaddas is an important example of this. He was also a theorist who opened new frontiers in Urdu criticism with his Moqaddama-e-Sher-o-Shairi (Preface to Poetry) which equals Wordsworth's Preface to Lyrical Ballads in importance, and even surpasses it in certain respects. He realized that with the impact of the West a new perspective was required. He, along with Mohammad Husain Azad (1830-1910), laid the foundations of a new poetry in 1867 under the auspices of Anjuman-e-Punjab, Lahore. Azad had asserted in the same year that Urdu poets should come out of the grooves of responses conditioned by Persian culture and root their works in the ethos of the land. Seeing no response to his pleas, he reiterated the same point seven years later on May 8, 1874 during his address on the occasion of the first mushaira of the Anjuman. These appeals failed to make and impact as sensibilities rooted in particular tradition are not easily altered even by impassioned pleas. Hali, creating a new taste for his age. Iqbal, with his remarkable religio-philosphical vision, and Josh Malihabadi (1838-1982), with his nationalistic and political fervour, produced exceptionally eloquent kinds of poetry that continue to reverberate over the years. Iqbal remained the most influential poet to achieve artistic excellence while putting forward a philosophical point of view, and his poetry, quite often, acquired the status of the accepted truth. A host of others Urdu poets and translators of English poetry who appeared on the literary scene during the first quarter of this century experimented with non-traditional poetic forms but they ultimately echoed sentiments and adopted forms that were more or less tradition-bound. They also looked towards the West, the traditional source of literary influence, but that was a world apart and too far to seek, They could reach only the Romantics who had already become outmoded in an age identified with Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot. A characteristically modern poem in form and value, tone and tenor, remained at best an intriguing possibility.

Progressive Writers Movement

The 1930s emerged as the archway for entry into a new world and achieve the unachieved. Some young Indians-- Sajjad Zaheer, Mulk Raj Anand, and Mohammad Deen Taseer-- who wee then studying in London, musing on the role of literature in a fast-changing world, came up with a manifesto for what came to be known as the Progressive Writers Movement. Even before this, Sajjad Zaheer, during his stay in India had published Angare (Embers), an anthology of short stories, with explicit sexual references and an attack on the decadent moral order. The book had to be banned, like Lady Chatterley's Lover, but the stories had an impact, as they were thematically interesting and technically innovative. The reader had suddenly become exposed to the worlds of Freud, Lawrence, Joyce and Woolf. There was a world of new values waiting to be explored by an emotionally charged and intellectually agile reader. the Progressive Writers Movement was launched at the right time. This was the precise hour to shed the age-old traditions, take leave to the clichés, proposed new theories, and explore a new world order.
Akhter Husain Raipuri, in his well-timed Adab aur Inqilab (Literature and Revolution) published in 1934, discarded the classical Urdu poets, including Mir and Ghalib, as degenerate representative of a feudalistic culture. This rejection was, however, based on extra-critical considerations as he was more intent on popularizing Marxist thought in literature. Premchand's famous presidential address to the conference of Progressive Writers Association in Lucknow two years later in 1936, came as a more precise call to relate literature to social reality. ' We will have to change the standards of beauty, ' he had said, and beauty of him was that which Eliot identified as ' boredom and horror' in his own context. The movement focussed on poverty, social backwardness, decadent morality, political exploitation; it dreamt of an ideal society and a just political system.
Every rebel was, therefore, a progressive writer and vice-versa during those exhilarating days. He was basically wedded to the idea of political and social revolution. He drew his inspiration from Marx. He rejected the striving for individual signatures, new modes of expression and new experiments in form. It was important for the poet to denote rather than connote, and to appeal to the larger humanity rather than to the individual. Falling victim of these errors before long, the movement alienated some noted poets, the most important of them being N. M. Rashed (1910-75) and Miraji (1912-49), who came together to lead a group called Halqa-e-Arbab-e-Zauq (Circle of Connoisseurs) in 1939. The progressive writers insistence on ideology and the impatience of those who cared more for art are reminiscent of the British poets of the 1930s and the later stance of W. H. Auden.
Faiz Ahmad Faiz (1911-84) is the most prominent and the finest of the poets who subscribed to the progressive ideology. he was singularly successful in striking a balance between art an ideas. He was drew upon sources other than Urdu and Persian and imparted an individual tone to his poetry. he did not raise slogans; he only uttered soft notes of expostulation. he was inspired more by the spirit of liberation than by slogans raised elsewhere. Prominent among other progressive poets were Asrarul Haq Majaz (1908-56), Makhdoom Mohiuddin (1908-69), Ali Sardar jafri (b.1913), Jan Nisar Akhter (1914-76), Kaifi Azmi (b.1918) and Sahir Ludhianawi (1921-80). They are mentioned here not only for the individual qualities of their poetry by also for their importance in this movement at a particular juncture in literary history. Despite the deep political complexion of the Progressive Writers Movement, it prominence was a short-lived affair. The next generation of poets expressed certain misgivings about their emphasis on class struggle in a materialistic and scientific world. The new poet wished to shake off all external shackles and apprehend his own experience for himself.

The modernism

N. M. Rashed and Miraji are the two most remarkable poets in this group.They along with Faiz, represent in the Urdu language what Eliot and the Symbolists do in English and French. They appeared later but also showed a unique resilience and vitality. Faiz was a poet with a message, one woven artistically into a pattern of symbols and delivered in a mellifluous tones. Rashed treated the Urdu language in a fresh way and created complex symbiotic fusion. Faiz appeals alike to the philanthropist and the philanderer, the pious and profane, the music makers and dreamers of dreams, but Rashed appeals only to a select readership. Faiz emerged as a myth in his own lifetime while Rashed and Miraji are yet to be fully appreciated. Rashed's resources are immense. The merging to the eastern and western influences accounts for the richness of his verse enhanced by linguistic innovation and poetic skill. Miraji, who reminds one of Tristan Corbiere in his bohemianism, drew upon Oriental, American and French sources, meditated upon time, death, the mystery if human desires, the raptures of sex and wrote in a variety of verse forms -- regular, free, and prose-like. He opted for esoteric symbolism, resorted to the stream-of-consciousness method and emerged as a unique modernist movement in Urdu poetry.
It was on this tradition that individual poets later developed their own version of modernism. Majeed Amjad (1914-74), Akhtarul Iman (b.1915) and Mukhtar Siddiqi (1917-72) deserves special mention here. A poem for them was a delicate work of art that succeeded or failed for its artistic worth. Akhtarul Iman wrote ironic, nostalgic and dramatic poems, while Majeed Amjad wrote in an inimitable introspective mood and ideas. They served as models for the younger poets to follow. The impact of Rashed, Miraji and Faiz was immense and far-reaching. Their successors echoed them, learnt from them and so came to acquire their own voices in course of time.
The generations of poets since the 1950s faced new predicaments. The Partition of India was an experience they had suffered, while the world around was also terribly alive and eventful. Groups of poets followed on after another; Wazir Agha (b.1922), Muneer Niyazi (b.1927), Ameeq Hanfi (1922-88), Balraj Komal (b.1928), Qazi Saleem (b.1930) grappled with the world around in an idiom and form that were decidedly new and had nothing to do with Progressive aesthetics. All of them acquired their own individual identities and made their mark in the development of modern poetry. They looked back at their won masters-- Mir and Ghalib-- and fared forward to Eliot and Empson. Modern literary and philosophical movements no longer remained alien. Realism, symbolism, existentialism, and surrealism, were drawn closer home. Kumar Pashi (1935-92), Zubair Rizvi (b.1935), Shahrayar (b.1936), Nida Fazli (b.1938) and Adil Mansoori (b.1941), on the one hand, and Gilani Kamran (b.1926), Abbas Ather (b.1934), Zahid Dar (b.1936), Saqi Farooqi (b.1936), Iftekhar Jalib (b.1936), Ahmed Hamesh (b.1937), Kishwar Naheed (b.1940) and Fehmida Reyaz (b.1946), on the other, experimented in form and technique, bringing in new diction and finding a place for new experiences. The new poem had come into being; modernism had firmly established itself by the mid-1970s.
Shaabkhoon, a literary journal, projected this movement in a big way and identified the poets of the new order. Ever since its inception in 1966, it has done a singular job -- especially during the vital 60s and 70s -- of creating a taste for modernism. Shamsur Rehman Farooqi, the most perceptive of the modern Urdu critics, played a vital role in helping recognize the contours of modernism with his critical studies. his studies appraising modern poets, as well as classical poets who bear upon the modern tradition, developed sound critical theories and helped in creating an atmosphere for the acceptance and appreciation of modernism.

Poetry in Pakistan

It may not seem quite right to speak of Urdu poetry in terms of Indian and Pakistani poetry, but it would be reasonable to say that the new urdu poetry in Pakistan is remarkable for its variety and vitality. Emerging from the common sources and traditions of history and culture, poetry in Pakistan has achieved its own frames of reference, its own tones of voice, its own notes of protest, largely because of the socio-political compulsions. Its poetics is characterized by a healthy adherence to tradition and somewhat virile improvisation of the traditional modes of expression.
The new poet in Pakistan has created his own blend of the lyrical with the prosaic, the manifest with the allegorical. he expressed his own predicament and that of the world around him which arouse both hope and fear, dreams and despair. Faiz Ahmad Faiz, Majeed Amjad and Muneer Niyazi, with their vitality and strength, have led us to the still more varied and vibrant Sermad Sehbai, Asghar Nadeem Syed, Afzal Ahmad Syed, Zeeshan Sahil and the vital feminine voices of Kishwar Nahed, Fehmida Reyaz, Nasreen Anjum Bhatti, Sara Shagufta, Shaista Habib and Azra Abbas. All these and many more form part of a formidable poetic scene. They are rich in their experience and execution and may well be placed among the prominent Third World voices that are being heard today with great curiosity and interest.
Modernism is an international phenomenon and modern Urdu poetry is a part of it. It has made its mark with its recognizably individual poetics. The Urdu poet is now free to make his choice; he has drawn upon sources both indigenous and foreign, literary and extra-literary, including philosophy, sociology and mythology. The issues regarding the form of the poem, the language, experiential capital and aesthetic dimensions have been resolved. the modern reader has finally identified his poem.