Dear Listeners,

This podcast you are listening to is the soundtrack of the second episode of HOW TO READ CHINESE POETRY VIDEOS. Taking advantage of ppt charts and animation, this episode shows viewers how to follow the three basic rules of tonal patterning to construct tonally regulated lines, then couplets, and finally quatrains.  The episode ends by inviting viewers to write out quatrain tonal patterns on their own.

Click the link to watch the video and subscribe to our channel: https://youtu.be/TSoktjvrYok.

AIGCS

Dear Listeners,

Please accept our apologies for being late to upload this new episode of How to Read Chinese Poetry Podcast.

AIGCS is pleased to launch the HOW TO READ CHINESE POETRY VIDEOS (HTRCPV), a companion program of HOW TO READ CHINESE POETRY PODCAST.  As a matter of fact, its first episodes are cross-listed as special video episodes (eps. 37-39) of the Podcast.  Unlike the Podcast, HTRCPV does not track Chinese poetry’s historical development but presents episodes in thematic clusters.  Due to the much greater technical challenges in producing videos, we will not be able to release episodes at regular intervals. We ask for kind patience from our viewers.

This podcast you are listening to is the soundtrack of the first episode of HOW TO READ CHINESE POETRY VIDEOS. Taking advantage of ppt charts and animation, this episode shows viewers how to follow the three basic rules of tonal patterning to construct tonally regulated lines, then couplets, and finally quatrains.  The episode ends by inviting viewers to write out quatrain tonal patterns on their own.

Click the link to watch the video and subscribe to our channel: https://youtu.be/bxp6Au7JKHE

AIGCS

This episode tells the stories of two Daoist nuns, Li Ye, who became a palace woman, and Yu Xuanji, who became a courtesan. Both left behind highly regarded poems but lost their lives to execution. The episode explores the perception of literary talent as it intersects with femininity.

Guest Host: Dr. Maija Bell Samei

Notice:

Dear listeners, we would like to announce that the next nine HTRCP episodes are special video episodes to be watched on YouTube at this link: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bxp6Au7JKHE

This episode discusses the interactions between courtesans and the literati during the Tang and how this is related to the formation of early ci poetry, and then introduces a few works by the well-known courtesan-poetess Xue Tao.

Guest Host: Dr. Maija Bell Samei

This episode introduces the problem of writing for women in the Tang in terms of the ritual regulation of women’s behavior and the social nature of poetry writing, then discusses the poetry of Shangguan Wan’er, a palace woman who became secretary to Empress Wu Zetian and also served at the court of her successor Emperor Zhongzong, becoming his consort.

Guest Host: Dr. Maija Bell Samei

This episode discusses the differences in tonal patterns between wujue and qijue, which had a clear impact on poetic practice. After the Tang, wujue became increasingly rare; we can conclude that poets no longer saw creative potential in the form—the great Tang writers had exhausted it. Qijue, on the contrary, remained one of the most popular and expressive poetic forms throughout the classical period.

Guest Host: Prof. Charles Egan, San Fransico State University

English poem recital by Andrew Merritt @ Andrew Merritt (divacatrecords.com)

Although a small number of Six Dynasties heptasyllabic quatrains are extant, and Early Tang poets experimented with the form, stylistically mature qijue poetry was an invention of the High Tang poets, most notably Wang Changling and Li Bai. Qijue developed along with Tang popular music, for which it was the major song form. Thus initially the thematic scope was narrow: qijue lyrics were generally limited to popular yuefu themes and those describing parting from friends and loved ones. Only gradually did the scope of qijue themes expand, until by the Middle and Late Tang, the form had become a flexible tool for personal expression.

Guest Host: Prof. Charles Egan, San Fransico State University

English poem recital by Andrew Merritt @ Andrew Merritt (divacatrecords.com)

Although Tang poets all used wujue to record concentrated poetic experience, and pursued the same fundamental aesthetic goals for the form, differing styles of poems can be discerned. Using representative poems by Wang Wei, Wang Zhihuan, and Li Bai, this episode presents two basic styles of Tang wujue, differentiated primarily by the choice of themes and the type of language employed.

Guest Host: Prof. Charles Egan, San Fransico State University

English poem recital by Andrew Merritt @ Andrew Merritt (divacatrecords.com)

The Chinese equivalent term of quatrain, i.e., jueju, literally means “cut-off lines.” It was erroneously believed by many critics that this meant the wujue and qijue forms had originated as quatrain segments cut from the eight-line lüshi forms. This episode begins with close readings of representative poems to provide readers a sense of the thematic and formal origins of jueju. A detailed examination of common jueju features then follows.

Guest Host: Prof. Charles Egan, San Fransico State University

English poem recital by Andrew Merritt @ Andrew Merritt (divacatrecords.com)

This episode examines how Wang Wei embodies moments of heightened perception or rather Buddhist enlightenment through his painterly depiction of a mountain climbing trip. His masterful blending of illusive images, perceptual illusion, and Buddhist worldview exemplifies his towering achievement as the poet-Buddha.

Host: Zong-qi Cai, Lingnan University of Hong Kong; University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

English poem recital by Andrew Merritt @ Andrew Merritt (divacatrecords.com)