Su Shi
Su Dongpo (also
widely known as Su Shi) is one of the greatest Chinese poets. He was born in
January 1101 in Jiangsu province, Changzhou China. Su Shi was also an
accomplished artist, public official, and a calligrapher (Cai 314). The
essayist hailed from a prominent literary family. As a young person, he
excelled in his official examination, which allowed him to occupy numerous
government positions during his distinguished and long career.
Year-on-year, Su’s popularity grew tremendously across
the province. He became a well-known important figure across the country due to
his industrious services. However, Su sometimes encountered sharp criticisms
from the senior figures in the government. For example, in the year 1079, Wang Anashi (a provincial prime minister) banished
Su Shi to Hubei, Hangzhou province because Su strongly opposed his measures of
radical reforms. Su Shi later wrote about Wang’s leadership under the poem Emperor Shenzong (Murck 31).
Still, there is a heated debate whether Wang banished Su Shi because of a
fierce rivalry, given that the prime minister was an accomplished poet himself.
While Su Shi served five-year banishment, he
maintained strong relations with Wang. In fact, he maintained his friendship
with the leader as demonstrated when he shared his poems and literary works
with him. Similarly, he was optimistic when he was banished to the Island of
Hainan in 1094. Ancient records indicate that Su was never bitter with his
rivals. During his sunset years, Su Shi returned to the mainland, where his
reputation and dignity was restored.
Literary Forms
Su Shi mastered nearly all the literary forms in
China. They included regulated verses such as Shi, prose poetry like Fu, and song forms such as Ci. Other forms included painting,
calligraphy, and essays. Particularly, Su laid a strong emphasis on the need
for expressiveness and spontaneity in his poems. A critical analysis of his
work indicates Su’s significant attempts
to loosen conventional poetry especially on content and form with regards to ci. As a result, Chinese scholars
consider him as the founder of haofang literature. Most of Su’s poems and
literary works vividly describe his experiences and those of fellow residents
in the hands of oppressive leadership. Ironically, Su was optimistic and
resilient both in his private and political life.
Despite being a great poet of the Song Dynasty, Su Shi
was mostly caught on the wrong side of the political divide because he authored
seditious political satires. During the reign of Yuafeng, Su was convicted for writing slanderous songs and
allegedly satirical poems. Some of the allegations were later proven to be
untrue. A persecution of a literary artist such as Su Shi paints a grim picture
of the extent of political control and
censorship of literature interpretations in the Ancient Chinese civilization. The
legal battle that ensued between Su Shi and the state is notoriously known as
“Crow Terrace Poetry Case” (Zhang 59). Some of the politically suspect poems
authored by Su Shi that almost caused him his life include the following
section on twin juniper trees.
“… facing one another in
dignity, an unassailable pair,
Their straight trunks rise to the sky without
ostentation,
Their roots reach the nether regions, never bend nor
twist,
Known to the dragon alone that lies in hibernation…” (Zhang
59)
Notably, a dragon is a symbol of Chinese political
power. In the past, Chinese royal leadership identified with the dragon image.
Thus, its inclusion in Su’s poem was seen as a disgrace to the emperor, given
that the poems authored by prominent persons were subjected to political
reading. There were numerous interpretations of
this section because it disclosed
numerous instances of poetry and its relationship with the empirical authority.
Poems
As a great literature master, Su Shi often shares
ranks with Ouyang Xiou. Specifically, his
poems such as Literary Giant and Cliff Rhapsody are some of the most
widely read pieces beyond China. Additionally, his Ci writing is often compared to that of Xin Qiji, who is reputed as
the greatest literary artist of Southern Song Dynasty. Su Shi’s two
masterpieces indicate the humanity’s greatness and the importance of the
artist’s independence. In essence, the writer advocated for the need for a
clear distinction between politics, religion, and scholarly works to ensure
freedom of expression.
Today, Cliff
Rhapsody is included in numerous anthologies of classical Chinese
literature translations. In the beginning of the Cliff Rhapsody, the author suggests an entry into a spiritual realm
(the world of immortals). According to him, this was an alternate reality that
could intersect with the human world at any moment. His technique in this poem
strikingly resembles landscapes dream in the poetry of western prose. The poem is a dialogue between the author and
his friend about the story of a flute player that grieves the shortness of
human’s life and longs for eternity. Therefore, Su Shi succeeds in capturing
the attention and the emotions of his audience through detailed descriptions of
the speaker and characters in the poem.
More than 2, 600 songs and poems authored by Su Shi
are survived and are spread in different archives and museums across China. The
majority of his poems adhere to Chi principles and styles, including Shui Diao
Ge Tou
that was inspired by the 200 AD naval clash of three Chinese Kingdoms. He also
mentions about the Battle of Chibi that took place between 2o6-208 AD. However, it is worth noting, however, that Su
Shi’s fame rests almost entirely on his Ci
poetry style (Yin 25). He vividly describes the natural phenomena both in his
visual art and written essays.
Essays
Furthermore, the author artistically documented his
travel experiences in a collection of day trip
essays. He employed diary, narratives, prose and songs in these documentations
to ignite the interests of his audience. He used his day trip essays to convey moral and philosophical arguments, even
though they contained information on topography, culture, and geography. For
instance in the Documentation of Stone
Bell Mountain, Su Shi conduct a deep investigation on the accuracy of the
ancient ‘stone bells’ documents. In the end, he offers his judgment on the
matter and recommends further investigation in the future.
In summary, Su Shi was one of the most important
scholars and political activists in the ancient China. He utilized his literary
skills to document the political situation and oppression that existed in the
empire, thus leading to his periodic clash with the political leaders. Due to
his persistence and staunch stance, Su Shi was occasionally banished from his
homeland, though he later returned to the mainland years before his death. Today,
his poems and songs have greatly influenced modern literature in Japan, Eastern
Asia, and the Western hemisphere.
Questions
1.
In
what ways has Su Shi influenced Chinese Literature?
2.
List
five authors in the modern China whose work is inspired by Su Shi’s style.
Work Cited
Cai,
Zong-qi. How to Read Chinese
Poetry: A Guided Anthology. New York: Columbia University Press, 2014:
300-364). Print.
Murck, Alfreda. Poetry and Painting in Song China: The
Subtle Art of Dissent. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Asia Center for
the Harvard-Yenching Institute, 2011: 1-76. Print.
Yin, Jiang. "The Concept of Qing in
Classic Chinese Poetry." Social
Sciences in China 1 (2000):
20-27. Print.
Zhang,
Longxi. Allegoresis: Reading
Canonical Literature East and West. Ithaca, N.Y: Cornell University Press,
2005: 300-364. Print.
