Brutally honest and deceptively simple, Tao Qian’s “Twenty Poems After Drinking Wine” is one of the most unique and emotionally affecting works of ancient literature, possessing a distinctly progressive voice and enduring style. The preface to the collection establishes a tone by which the subsequent poems all abide, forming a conglomerate of dry humor, slightly sorrowful recollection, and overall simplicity: Living in retirement here I have few pleasures, and now the nights are growing longer, so, as I happen to have some excellent wine, not an evening passes without a drink. All alone with my shadow I empty a bottle until suddenly I find myself drunk. And once I am drunk I write a few verses for my own amusement. In the course of time the pages have multiplied, but there is no particular sequence in what I have written. I have had a friend make a copy, with no more in mind than to provide a distraction (Qian 1011-1012). Tao Qian creates beauty within the midst of human …show more content…
The past is reminisced upon with an unromantic clarity; current trials are discussed openly with a bittersweet frankness. Considering the approach and thematic material of writers in that era, one would expect to find a similar tact and comparable underpinnings to Tao Qian’s works. Conversely, this is not the case whatsoever. Tao Qian’s aptitude serves as a total counterstatement to a significant fraction of his contemporaries, and therein lies the appeal. Conversational, blunt, and informal, Tao Qian’s point of view provide intimate descriptions of humanity found in nature. Elsewhere, for instance in the ninth entry of “Twenty Poems After Drinking Wine,” Tao Qian contemplates on the enduring impact of choices: “You one can learn of course to pull the reins, to go against oneself is a real mistake. So, let’s just have a drink of drink of this together—There’s no turning back my carriage now” (Qian
Jonathan D. Spence weaves together fact and fiction in his book The Death of Woman Wang. Approaching history through the eyes of those who lived it, he tells a story of those affected by history rather than solely recounting the historical events themselves. By incorporating factual evidence, contextualizing the scene, and introducing individual accounts, he chronicles events and experiences in a person’s life rather than episodes in history. Spence pulls together the narrative from a factual local history of T’an-ch’eng by scholar Fenge K’o-ts’an, the memoir of magistrate Huang Liu-hung, and fictional stories by writer P’u Sung-ling. The book closely resembles an historical fiction while still maintaining the integrity of an historical reconstruction.
The Cultural Revolution in China was led by Mao Zedong, due to this Liang and many others faced overwhelming obstacles in many aspects of their life such as work, family and everyday encounters, if affected everyone’s families life and education, Liang lets us experience his everyday struggles during this era, where the government determined almost every aspect of life. The beginning of the book starts out with Liang’s typical life, which seems normal, he has a family which consists of three children, two older sisters and him the youngest, his two sister’s reside in Changsha 1. his father has an everyday occupation working as a journalist at a local newspaper. Things start to take a turn early in life for Liang Heng, his family politics were always questioned, the mistake made by one of his family members would impact his entire family and it would be something they would have to suffer through, it was impossible for them to live down such a sin.... ...
Appreciably, Pearl S. Buck depicted her very characters on such a detail basis that everyone in her story seemed to move truly alive in each single page of the bound book in the meant time of reading and after. One of them comes Wang Lung, the main figure of being the peasant of Nanking, the son of an old man, the husband of O-Lan, the father of sons and daughters, the escaper of the famine, the looter of the great house in the south, the peasant-turn-wealthy of his town, and the old one of himself. Yet, is he a good man? Right here in this text, a negotiable one, he comes representing all of himself and lets the deep considerate and well concerning readers judge and say whether, "Wang Lung is a good man." or "Wang Lung is not a good man." through their respective points of view.
The story “The Execution of Mayor Yin” takes a perilous look at the dark side of the events that happened during the Cultural Revolution. Chairman Mao’s Red Guards were tasked with a cultural cleansing that left many people more confused at the roles they played in society than it reinforced the social class structure. The story tells of a young member of the Red Guard and the personal conflict he suffered during the cleansing of Hsingan, which lay to rest his uncle and possibly even a good friend. The torment the people suffered and the personal struggle Hsaio Wu battled with coincide strongly with the age old question, “Are humans inherently evil?”
In his poem, “Notes from the City of the Sun”, Bei Dao utilizes obscure imagery consistent with the Misty Poets and veiled political references to illustrate the struggles in Chinese society during the Cultural Revolution. The poem is sectioned into fourteen short stanzas containing imagery that are symbolic of the cultural hegemony in China under the rule of Mao Zedong. Bei Dao, born Zhao Zhen-kai, is an anti-revolutionary poet and one of the founders of a group known as the Misty Poets. The Misty Poets wrote poems that protested the Cultural Revolution led by Mao Zedong. Therefore, a lot of Bei Dao’s poems speak out against the Cultural Revolution and the restrictions that it placed on any form of art. Bei Dao’s poetry is categorized as “misty” because of the ambiguity in its references to Mao Zedong and the Cultural Revolution. An obscure imagery that occurs twice in “Notes” is the sun imagery. Another imagery that depicts the injustice of the Cultural Revolution is the description of freedom as scraps of paper. In the poem, Bei Dao also equates faith to sheep falling into a ditch; this is a depiction blind faith during the Cultural Revolution. The purpose of this essay is to analyze how Bei Dao’s use of the Misty Poet’s ambiguous imagery and implicit political context in the poem “Notes from the City of the Sun” to illustrate the cultural hegemony in China under Mao.
The family's personal encounters with the destructive nature of the traditional family have forced them to think in modern ways so they will not follow the same destructive path that they've seen so many before they get lost. In this new age struggle for happiness within the Kao family, a cultural barrier is constructed between the modern youth and the traditional adults, with Chueh-hsin teeter tottering on the edge, lost between them both. While the traditional family seems to be cracking and falling apart much like an iceberg in warm ocean waters, the bond between Chueh-min, Chueh-hui, Chin and their friends becomes as strong as the ocean itself. While traditional Confucianism plays a large role in the problems faced by the Kao family, it is the combination of both Confucianism and modernization that brings the family to its knees. Chueh-hsin is a huge factor in the novel for many reasons.
Chapter one, The Observers, in the Death of Woman Wang demonstrates the accuracy of the local historian; Feng K'o-ts'an, who compiled The Local History of T'an-ch'eng in 1673. The descriptive context of the Local History helps the reader to understand and literally penetrate into people's lives. The use of records of the earthquake of 1668, the White Lotus rising of 1622 and rebels rising vividly described by Feng the extent of suffering the people of T'an-ch'eng went through. Jonathan Spence stresses on how miserable the two-quarter of the seventeen-century were to the diminishing population of the county. The earthquake claimed the lives of nine thousand people, many others died in the White lotus rising, hunger, sickness and banditry. P'u Sung-ling's stories convey that after the loss of the wheat crops there were cases of cannibalism. On top of all of this came the slaughtering of the entire family lines by the bandits. The incredible records of women like Yao and Sun in the Local History present the reader the magnitude of savagery the bandits possessed. All of these factors led to the rise of suicides. The clarity of events Spence given to the reader is overwhelming.
Jealousy is an innate facet of humanity, an emotion universally felt during childhood. It is through this jealousy that we begin to resent the reality that we are given. In the article “Eat, Memory: Orange Crush,” Yiyun Li recalls how influential the western product “Tang” was during her childhood. Growing up, Li remembers a time where she was resentful of her lack of Tang, desiring the “Tangy” lifestyle which was symbolic of luxury and social status in China. Through the logos of Li’s father, Li’s appeal to pathos through her childhood experiences, and the disillusionment of Li’s utopian view of Tang, Li typifies the struggle a teenager undergoes as they grow up.
Jonathan Spence tells his readers of how Mao Zedong was a remarkable man to say the very least. He grew up a poor farm boy from a small rural town in Shaoshan, China. Mao was originally fated to be a farmer just as his father was. It was by chance that his young wife passed away and he was permitted to continue his education which he valued so greatly. Mao matured in a China that was undergoing a threat from foreign businesses and an unruly class of young people who wanted modernization. Throughout his school years and beyond Mao watched as the nation he lived in continued to change with the immense number of youth who began to westernize. Yet in classes he learned classical Chinese literature, poems, and history. Mao also attained a thorough knowledge of the modern and Western world. This great struggle between modern and classical Chinese is what can be attributed to most of the unrest in China during this time period. His education, determination and infectious personalit...
Literature shows us the changes of our society from time to time. It also gives us an idea about people, culture, politics, gender traditions, as well as an overall view of previous civilizations. As a part of literature, poetry introduces us to different cultures with different perspectives. Ancient Egypt and ancient China may differ in terms of culture, politics, economic stability, tradition, or even in religious belief. However, in poetry, especially in love lyrics both Egyptian and Chinese poems portray common area of describing women, social attitudes toward love, sexuality and the existence of romance or selfishness in relationships. . If we look at the Egyptian poem “My god, my Lotus” and the Chinese poem “Fishhawk”, we will see both poems have similarities in describing relationships. Also, they have the similarity of imagining the lovers and their expression of love toward each other. However, both poems have some significant differences in terms of representing female sexuality, gender disparity and the display of love.
The Chinese people experienced rapid changes, in government and their own culture in the 20th century. In the book, Wild Swans, by Jung Chang, she depicts the experiences of not only oppression and suffering, but the development of the communist revolution, under Mao. Also, to show how the Chinese people, women in particular, fought against impossible odds by interweaving historical and personal stories from the twentieth century China.
"Holy Mencius (Chinese): Book 3 - Part 3." Holy Mencius (Chinese): Book 3 - Part 3. Ishwar, n.d. Web. 12 Nov. 2013. .
In The Cowshed, Ji Xianlin provides a recollection of the Cultural Revolution that is both similar and dissimilar to other memoirs. As a professor at Peking University, Ji Xianlin was one of many intellectuals and academics that were targeted by the Red Guards. His description of his experiences of struggle sessions or reform through labor in The Cowshed was not unlike those faced by his peers. Instead of presenting his experiences in anger, Ji Xianlin presents his experience of the Cultural Revolution from the perspective of someone who deserved punishment, not a victim. Moreover, despite everything he experienced, Ji Xianlin remained a loyal supporter of the Communist Party.
As he alienates himself from his initial environment, he appears to develop into a character completely opposite of what he was. Scholars Rochmat Budi Santosa and Richard Jean So show how much Wang Lung cherishes his land. So describes Wang Lung’s upbringing as being devoted to the land (101). He reminds the reader
Allusions towards drunkenness, or any drugged like state in general, also play an important role in shaping the poem’s meaning. The use of these allusions effectively enhances the idea that art, or more specifically poetry, can take the mind away and become an almost