User Comments - tommaz
tommaz
Posted on: Dreams of the Departed 陇西行
February 24, 2009 at 8:23 PMAwesome poem, great series. Loving it.
Regarding metonymy, there are a couple of great paragraphs on it in Zen in English Literature and the Oriental Classics by R. H. Blyth (a must-read for anyone interested in East-West poetic relations). Unfortunately, it's not available on Google books, so I'll just quote from it here:
Metonymy, the naming of a thing by some accompaniment, shows our innate capacity to perceive the weakness and instability of the divisions the mind invents between one thing an another.
O for a beaker full of the warm South.
- from "Ode to a Nightingale" by John Keats
The blue sea, the hot sun, the brown peasants, the vines, the grapes, the wine, the ecstacy of feeling - all are one in this line, and this all-one is the essence of poetry, of art, of religion. It is Zen.
Lycidas, your sorrow, is not dead.
-from "Lycidas" by John Milton
The man himself, the grief we feel at his death, these are separated by the mind, by language, by speech into these two different things. But in our experience these two are one, and in the figure of speech, "Lycidas, your sorrow," they are seen as they really are, two names for a single reality. "Is not dead" refers only to Lycidas; just for an instant, while the eye moves across the three words "Lycidas, your sorrow," this unity of Subject, predicate, boject, (I sorrow for Lycidas, I = sorrow = Lycidas) is perceived in a flash of enlightenment, then all is dark again - but with a difference.
Posted on: Seeing off an Old Friend 渭城曲
January 27, 2009 at 6:30 PMThanks again for a great lesson, Pete, and thanks, Changye, for the analysis of the structure.
Posted on: Farewell, Son 游子吟
January 21, 2009 at 9:02 PMThis is just what I was looking for in ChinesePod, so thanks a lot!
I don't think a modern translation of the poem is necessary. In fact, I like the current format of describing it by concepts because it's more likely that the original will stick with you.
Speaking of sticking with you, I'll second the suggestion to the other poddies to memorize some poems. It gives you a richer understanding of the language and will impress your Chinese friends. I have a friend in Harbin who still tells all his buddies about the American who can recite the 道德经. My method is to write out the poems on notecards and stick them on my desk or bathroom mirror. Kind of passive memorization.
As for suggestions, I'm a big fan of 白居易, but I love 'em all.
Posted on: Dreams of the Departed 陇西行
February 24, 2009 at 10:48 PMBill, I think you're right. I think Blyth is blurring the terms to suit his own thesis on Zen poetics there.
Anyway, I really love the discussion, and thanks to all you guys for pointing out the Chinese terms 借代 and 借喻. I've never studied any of this stuff actually in Chinese before.