#redology

Regulated Verse is an exacting form of poetry. It exploits the characteristic tonality of the Chinese language, using a very rigid formal structure in which tension is created by combining tonal contrast with verbal parallelism. Two meters only are allowed, the pentasyllabic and the heptasyllabic and only one of them may be used in the same poem. Only level-tone words may be used as rhyme. All Regulated Verse poems have eight lines—four couplets—and have the same rhyme throughout in alternate lines, rhyme in the first line being optional. In the two central couplets there has to be verbal parallelism. This verbal parallelism sometimes extends to the first and, more rarely, to the last couplet as well. Tonal contrast has to be observed throughout the whole poem, in all four couplets. In practice it is only the second, fourth and final syllables of each line that must conform to the pattern.

In the social practice, firstly poetry teaches one a proper sense of how to be a socially-acceptable human. Poetry articulates what is closest to the author’s mind and desire (诗以言志), and defines who one person is. It is a crystallization of one person’s heart, personality and style; it also crystalizes a moment into the poem so that reader can reconstitute the inner world of the poem. Since poetry encodes personality, style and interaction with readers, to read a poetry resembles to decode the words and to understand or befriend with the poet. It allows one to express personal emotion, intimate desire, political ambition and self-image. However, it also requires one to capture powerful human emotions and put strong feelings into appropriate ways so as to meet the social tendency and please certain readers. Others can judge the property, temperament, capability through the poems.

Secondly, poetry functions as a currency and a social media. As a representation of the author, poetry offers opportunity for social interaction and circulation among male literati, especially for the participation in the exam system and bureaucratic structure. Since poetry is an indispensable social tool and a cornerstone of curriculum, it provides a common base for communication among educated elites. What’s more, poetry helps one to acquire social position. As a vehicle of sociality, mastering poetry can pass the examination and get into the elite circle. Through poetry, one can make friends, compete with peers, protest unsatisfactory situations, show off talents and even flatter or impress some celebrities. In some way, poetry also establishes a province of male interactions, a patriarchal realm for political ends. Describing that girls mimic men in the political circle to write poems in an isolated garden, the book renders the subversive function of poem concerning comments on gender. I pick Daiyu’s poem in Chapter 37: “Beside the half-raised blind, the half-closed door,/Crushed ice for earth and white jade for the pot,/Three parts of whiteness from the pear-tree stolen,/One part from plum for scent (which pear has not)-/Moon-maidens stitched them with white silken thread,/ And virgins’ tears the new-made flowers did spot,/Which now, like bashful maids that no word say,/ Lean languid on the breeze at close of day” (224, v1.).

In the poem, 门, 盆, 魂, 痕, 昏 are all level-tone words as rhyme. The two central couplets comply with verbal parallelism. Verbs of “steal” and “borrow”, numerals of “three” and “one” and nouns of “pear-tree” and “plum” match each other respectively. Subjects of “Moon-maidens” and “virgins” match each other and each refer to other stories beyond the poem itself. In this poem, the verbal parallelism does not extend to the first and last two lines. The whole poem is in heptasyllabic meter with the first line which starts from oblique-level, in rhyme. Only 白, 得 and 窟 are non-conforming rhymes. Due to the difficulty of the exacting form, some exceptions against the rule are permitted in real practice. Daiyu’s poem is the most stylish and distinctive one, also the best one in the poem competition. She innovatively gives a blocked access to the flowers at the beginning and later refers to other flowers to write about the crab-blossom indirectly. The subject of the poem is about white crab-blossom, but Daiyu does not begin her poem with the flowers directly. She smartly first mentions the “blind” and “door”, not writing about the flowers in order to write about the flowers, in the same manner as the narration of the book itself. This withdrawn view resembles Daiyu’s self-identification as an outsider in the Jia family. The “blind” is made of spotted bamboos, which refers the same bamboos in Naiad’s House, Daiyu’s name River Queen(潇湘妃子) and the woody nature of Daiyu as Crimson Pearl Flower(绛珠仙草). “Half-raised” and “half-closed” depict the shyness and caution of Daiyu, who never fully reveals herself in front of other people. Then she compares “earth” to “crushed ice” and “pot” to “jade”. Viewing common and dirty objects in an elegant and refined way embodies Daiyu’s noble and unsullied nature, and corresponds to her germaphobia. The analogy of the whiteness of pear and scent of plum strengthens the purity and beauty of crab-blossom. Since poetry is the crystallization of author’s personality, the analogy also reveals Daiyu’s loftiness and cleanness. The third and fourth lines paraphrase Lu Meipo’s lines—“梅须逊雪三分白，雪却输梅一段香.” The witty word choice of “stolen” and borrow proves that “[Daiyu has] more chambers in her heart than the martyred Bi Gan” (103, v1.). The fifth line alludes to Chang’e stitching mourning clothes, foreshadowing the ill fate of Daiyu. “Virgins’ tears” in the sixth line echoes Daiyu’s debt of tears. The fifth and sixth involve implicit allusions and plots to blur intended motivation of the lines. This kind of obscurantism is common in the poems of Li Shangyin, who Daiyu dislikes but still study his style attentively and unwittingly. The last two lines personify the flowers as “bashful maids” who lack confidants, implying that Daiyu, just like these flowers, cannot tell any inner words to others, but only stand forlorn in the soughing breeze.