-
A Brief Comparison between Chinese and
Western Poems
on Love
Abstracts
Love
is an immoral eternity, mesmerizing men of letter
with its mysterious
enchantment and
infinite yearning. The exquisite encomiums and
passionate
eulogizations created by
those poets provided the greatness of love with
sufficient
moisture and sunshine and
fostered it as the most gorgeous floweriness
bloomed in
the world of humanity.
While love is highly worshiped in both
cultures, these two express their same
ideas with different means of artistic
styles, emotional trails and detailed descriptions
in the term of poetry creation. Each of
them took sturdy root from their splendid
history and all-embracing society,
traditional culture and ethnic psychology,
respective aesthetic and philosophic
values, reflecting unique glamour and ethnic
speciality. Thus, western and Chinese
poetries interweave and stretch in entire
complexity. This essay will mainly deal
with the difference between western and
Chinese poetries in the aspects of
artistic styles, emotional trails and detailed
description to have a general overlook
at the difference.
Key
words:
love; Chinese and western poem;
cultural difference
1
Contents
Chapter 1
Introduction…………………………………
1
1.1 Why Love-
theme
Poem……………………………………
1
1.1.1 The Oath of
Love…………………………………………2
1.1.2 Function and Meaning of
Poem…………………………
3
Chapter 2 The Comparison Between the
Poems…………
4
2.1
Artistic styles……………………………………
……
< br>……
4
2.1.1 Preference on Stereotype and
Content……………………
4
2.1.2
Different Choice of
Words
………
…………
……
………
5
2.1.3 The Beauty of
Masculine and Femininity………
………
…
6
2.2
Em
otional
trails……………………………………………
7
2.2.1 Different Theme Tendency…………………
…
…………
7
2.2.2 Cultural Background…………………
…………
………
9
2.2.3 Philosophical
Difference…………………………………
12
2.3 Under the Religious
Influence………………………………
13
Chapter 3 Detailed
descriptions…………………………
15
3.1.1 Description of Lover’s Appearance
……………
………
…
15
3.1.2 Description of E
nvironment…………
………………
……
16
2
Chapter 4
Conclusion………………………………………
18
References……………………………………………………
19
3
A Brief Comparison
between Chinese and Western Poems
on
Love
Chapter 1 Introduction
Recalling the past in the light of the
present, love is an immoral eternity,
mesmerizing men of letter with its
mysterious enchantment and infinite yearning. The
exquisite encomiums and passionate
eulogizations created by those poets provided the
greatness of love with sufficient
moisture and sunshine and fostered it as the most
gorgeous floweriness bloomed in the
world of humanity.
In both western and
Chinese culture, love is sowed in everybody’s deep
heart
like a seed. Those millennial
poetry chapters only activate its germination and
trigger
sympathetic resonance of
beings, waking up their nature niceness and
sincere desires.
While love is highly
worshiped in both cultures, these two express
their same
ideas with different means
of artistic styles, emotional trails and detailed
descriptions
in the term of poetry
creation. Each of them took sturdy root from their
splendid
history and all-embracing
society, traditional culture and ethnic
psychology,
respective aesthetic and
philosophic values, reflecting unique glamour and
ethnic
speciality. Thus, western and
Chinese poetries interweave and stretch in entire
complexity. This essay will mainly deal
with the difference between western and
Chinese poetries of love from the
aspect of three mentioned above.
1.1 Why Love-theme Poem
China is the world of poetry, and the
love poetry remained dating from the
11
th
century B.C.
to 6
th
century B.C. which
was written down in
the Book of
Odes.
A Fair
Maiden
firstly described the
expression of love by a gentleman to a beauty
directly.
And there were other
masterpieces presented us a sweet and romantic
picture of
lovers murmuring intimately
by the riverside, surrounding with blooming
flowers;
permeating with fresh and
clean air of spring; brimming with larkishness and
happiness of love. Their peace and
sweet love was pursued and sought. Seemingly,
1
this kind of
love was stereotyped as the classical sample of
Chinese. However, once
we stepped into
feudalism, this frankness and direct statement was
shackled by the
restriction of the main
principles of social order and Confucius's theory
of “bounded
by sense, initiated by
sensibility”. Therefore, we witnessed a decline of
enthusiasm
and passion and also
frankness since then. This ever-lasting influence
controlled the
mainstreams until modern
times.
Compared with Chinese poetries,
the western poetries did not reveal their
yashmak until 8
th
century B.C. in Greece. Similarly, they originated
from the folk
songs as China and sang
by their renowned artists, often accompanying with
musical
instruments. Their love poems
many express passion, sadness, pains and
sufferings of
separation, jealousy and
torture between lovers. They possess simple
language and
sincere feelings, having
special touching charm of art. At this point, we
two cultures
share same natures. The
differentiation started at medieval times when
chivalry poem
was a big hit. Platonic
love was precipitated at that time and people
stick to the saying
“For a man to be
sentimentally attached to moral
character
is always very beautiful
things”.
Songs of dawn, the
flower of Provencal love poetry, thus described
the
loathness and unwillingness to part
between a knight and a noblewoman, together
with the bearable fleshliness. And this
laid fundamental key of western poetries.
1.1.1 The Oath of Love
The modern Chinese dictionary fifth
edition explains love: the affective love
feelings between men and women. While
at the same time, we can appreciate the
following sentence. Love is patient;
love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or
arrogant or rude. It does not insist on
its own way; it is not irritable or resentful, it
does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but
rejoices in the truth. It bears all things,
believes
all things, hopes all things,
endures all things. Love never ends. That is the
script in
the Bible
, further
demonstrating us the quality and feeling of love.
However, it is still
so ambiguous and
unclear to understand, sometimes, it is even
ridiculous to hear the
shallow
definition. We would rather leave the holiest noun
unexplained, to reflect our
respect and
pious worship to niceness. Thus, everyone can have
his own comment, it
letting his
imagination fly.
2
We know for sure that love is the
strong attachment for reliance, yearning,
intimacy and the single-minded,
selfless, cordial emotion between people. Human
beings are crazy about love, inebriated
to love and thirsty for love. It is such an
immoral eternity that transcended
thousands of years, resisting the erosion of time
and
defeating the aggression of social
rebellion, and survived to prove its value.
1.1.2 Function and Meaning of Poem
The reason why I choose poetry is its
unique and significant tastes, together with
its aesthetic expression. Poetry is
art; it is beauty. We cannot live without poems;
we
cannot lack poetic flavor in life.
It is a kind of decorous achievement and a kind of
upward force, leading people positive
and realizing their dreams. All the literature
genres are worthy of recommendation and
are precious cultural heritages, but among
them, poetry is the highest and hardest
art, also the most concise and beautiful art.
There is one famous saying from Confuci
us
“
小子何莫
学
夫
?
诗诗
可以
兴
，可以
观
，可以群，可以怨。<
/p>
迩
之事父，
远
之
事君，多
识
于
鸟兽
草木之名。
”
The
general meaning of the sentence is that
poetry can stimulate sentiment, observe the
society; it can help you acquaint tacit
and bosom friends, tranquilize uneven thorn. It
can serve parents nearby and serve your
country afar; still you can know many names
of the birds and animals. This is the
most highly praised comment of poetry in the
social role, playing the function as
raising aesthetic appreciation, education and pure
interest in traditional culture.
The poets convey emotion through
imaginative and incredible leap. They
intercepted flowing time in poetry; an
instant moment can inject more perfect beauty
in the bow of poetry. The leap in the
space is superior to the speed of reality, like
wings with spirit and consciousness,
elevating beautification to nature.
Then, people can use poems to express
adoration to their lovers since ancient
times, which accomplished countless
romantic and touching love. In this materialistic
world today, lyrical poem still play
important roles as the matchmaker and the main
tool to unleash feeling. An elegant and
sincere poem is more than any noble gifts.
Thus, the combination of love and poem
is a perfect choice.
3
Chapter 2 The Comparison
Between the Two Poems
2.1
Artistic styles
2.1.1 Preference on
Stereotype and Content
Chinese poems put priority to the
approach and methods. Anything abundant in
ideas and connotation collapses without
appropriate procedure and form. Chinese
reserve their inner feelings and
emotions, thus, in the term of poem creation, we
emphasize on gentle and courteous
expression, ambiguous revealing and implicit
communication. The most typical and
classical example shoulders on the famous
poem
Pipaxing,
Juyi Bai, “
千呼万
唤
始出
来
，
犹
抱琵琶半遮面
”. This sentence
describes such a situation. The beauty
finally showed on the stage after the most
vehement and thirstiest anticipation,
while still remaining her face unveiled, seducing
imagination and curiosity. It really
demonstrates a beauty and sense of love to the
readers but in an implicit expression,
leaving blank space for us to fulfill this picture
and the wanted appearance the beauty
is. This kind of artistic expression perfectly
accords with Chinese ambiguously
implicative aesthetics.
Only after
digging into the deep value of the poem can you
realize the content
and feeling the
author want to express. It is really a tough work
to see through the
appearance to
perceive the essence while in the other part,
let’s look at the artistic
style of
western poetries.
Obviously, western
poetries pay attention to the ideas and meaning of
contexts
instead of the approaches and
methods. Westerners express themselves directly,
thus,
in the term of poetries creation,
they emphasize the brave and frank expression,
enthusiastic and untrammeled confess.
The most renowned poem by Byron
Maid of
Athens
“Maid of
Athens, ere we part, Give, oh give me back my
heart!” Byron
hallooed you are my life
and I love you. That is the reflection of the most
typical
characteristic of western
figures. They are thirsty for love, thus, they
shout for love as
if the love will fade
and their lover will escape from their world
immediately. They
4
know the fact that they should carpe
diem and take command of the current happiness.
Take a look at this, an extract from
Romeo and Juliet
Shakespeare,
Forgive me for
needing you in my life;
Forgive me for
enjoying the beauty of your body and soul;
Forgive me for wanting to be with you
when I grow old.
2.1.2 Different
Choice of Words
W
hat’s more,
the choice of words and rhythm of the poem is also
worthy of
careful study. For example,
“
东边
日出西
边
雨，道是无晴却有晴。
”
The Bamboo
Sprig
Yuxi Liu.
These two words “
晴
” and
“
情
” is a pretty pun and
euphony which
embodies the rhythmic
aestheticism. “
寻寻觅觅
，冷冷
清清
，凄凄
惨惨
戚戚。
”
Shengshengman
Qingzhao Li. Here, the use of reduplicated words
can both enhance
the rhythm of the poem
and help convey the feelings. The choice of words
and
collocation to compose a harmonious
rhythm can fully mobilize your sense easily and
plunk your string airly. Thus, a
resonance is attracted successfully and we can
also
feel the sweet love the poets want
to release. At the same time, the syndetic words
can
make described views or characters
more vivid and be abundant of artistic glamour,
by either sound or expression of color
making images more exact.
To embody the
rhythm and establish a wanted atmosphere, poets
are so
particular about the choice of
words. Every single word expresses a sophisticated
feeling and an exquisitely-cultivated
relation. Thus, the western poems also pay
attention to this and have their own
speciality.
Western poetries have their
unique style of verse, sonnet, which only reflects
the
love oaths. Sonnet is also
particular about the rhythm of poem but it does
not that
strict. Chinese demands a
thorough rhyme while the sonnet only requires
rhyme in the
right place. Just
like
O Mistress Mine,
Shakespeare,
O mistress! Where are you
roaming?
O! Stay and hear; your true
love is coming
That can sing both high
and low.
Trip no further, pretty
sweeting,
5
Journey end in lovers meeting,
Every wise man’s son doth know.
The First Day
Christina Rossetti,
Last
Sonnet
Keats. Neat form and beautiful
rhyme, with praise of love, performs
the main contents of humanistic thoughts. That is
the spotlight of western poetry,
demonstrating the important position of love
poems.
2.1.3 The Beauty of Masculine
and Femininity
Chinese poetries stress
the feminine
–
beauty of love.
Love is the private affair
between two
individual persons, thus it is peaceful and
tranquil, sweet and intimate.
For this
reason, the characteristic in the poems are
frequently the feminine, while
actually
the author of the poem is a man. These sentimental
male poets used to deliver
their value
and opinions from the behavior o
f
females. That’s really a flavor. The
following are the typical samples:
何
时
倚
虚
幌，
双
照
泪
痕干？
Moonlight Night
Tu
Fu
蜡
烛
有心
还
惜
别
，替人垂
泪
到天明。
Parting
Du Mu
Femininity demonstrates itself
obedience, connotation and tranquility in humanity
while in the expression of poems, it
tends to be a female-characteristic, filling with
the
traits of gorgeous beauty and
elegance. There are two categories: flamboyant and
simple. Oftentimes, the creation
depends on the circumstance and experience of the
poet, thus, we can have a clear view of
one raffish poem by Shangyin Li,
Wordless
,
“
相
见时难别
亦
难
，
东风
无力百花
残
。春蚕到死
丝
方
尽<
/p>
，蜡炬成灰
泪
始干。
”
This is the well-known poem in
China, which express the melancholy and
heart-
broken missing after parting. You
can tell the strong emotional feeling by the
poet’s
choice of words, in terms of
English, like broken, death, ashes, tears and end.
In the
eye of a female, such
sentimentality is well accepted and easier to
understand.
While, the westerners
differ with us in the expression of feelings,
thus, in the
terms of poem creation,
they show us a real positive, sunny and optimistic
picture.
They really emphasize the
masculine-love. Though they admit that love is a
private
affair, they like to process
their relations in secret and demand other people
to witness
their true and deep love.
The male poets express the feeling of appreciation
and
admiration in the oath of death and
evil. They praise the physical female body and
6
even radiate
carnalness. They narrate in a simple direct way,
without dodging. Also
by Byron, an
extract from
Maid of Athens
“By that lip I long to
taste;
By that zone-
encircled waist;
By all the token-
flowers that tell
What words can never
speak so well;
By love's alternate joy
and woe,”
If we compare the
love of Chinese to moonlight, the love of
westerners must be
the ardent sunlight.
The moonlight spreads its warm and light so
politely and quietly,
permeating with
the sound of tranquility and silence. The sunlight
sparkle its love so
vehemently and
enthusiastically. Both of these two
characteristics accord with the
traits
of the specific personality. So we can say that
however feminine or masculine,
they
shine fabulously in their own universe.
2.2 Emotional trails
2.2.1 Different Theme
Tendency
Zhongshu Qian says
in the book
Seven Compose
Set
“Chinese
large
ly appear to
be bold
and unrestrained on emotion, no nag, no loud
voice, not to mention that
strength and
color. The romantic poem may sounds classical in
the western culture,
while the
forthright is still too implicit compared with the
westerners.” This o
pinion
explicitly tells the two different
poems apart.
At the aspect of the
themes of poems, Chinese mainly deals with the
separation,
lovesickness, and the
vicissitudes of life. Oftentimes, they sprinkle
gifted pen on
sadness and tragedy.
In the mainstream of Chinese culture,
love is considered selfish individualism
and miserably unworthy. We give first
priority on the friendship of bromance and the
fidelity to their country and monarch.
Under the great pressure from society, culture
and custom, a promising man should
devote himself to the official promotion,
7
acquainting
celebrities and sacrifice himself to the interest
and integrity of the country.
Love
affair between man and woman was destined shameful
and idealess. Thus, love-
oriented
poetries occupied a pitiful amount and treated
unpresentable. For example,
Song of
Everlasting Sorrow
Juyi Bai. This poem
tells us the royal love tragedy
between
Emperor Xuanzong and his concubine Yang Guifei at
the background of the
dynastic changes,
filling with romantic and poignant flavor, and
really exemplified
the tininess of
love.
七月七日
长
生殿，夜半无
人私
语时
。
在天愿作比翼
鸟
，在地愿
为连
理枝。
天
长
地久有
时尽
，此恨
绵绵
无
绝
期。
However, in the old times, the female
position is belittled, thus, love is not that
worshipped by Chinese like the
westerners. There are more poems about the missing
and lovesickness after the pass-way of
companion or marriage than in the process of
chasing the lovers. Thus, most of the
poems are created after marriage and the death
of couples, in order to recall and make
sincere condolence to the dead. It is one
specific trait of the Chinese poem due
to its special cultural background. The
following is one famous poem created by
the great poet Sushi
Jiangchengzi
YiMeng
十年生死
两
茫茫，不思量，自
难
忘。
千里孤
坟
，无
处话
凄凉。
纵
使相逢
应
不
识
，
尘满
面，
鬓
如霜。
夜
来
幽
梦
忽
还乡
。小
轩
窗，正梳
妆
。
相
顾
无言，惟有
泪
千行。
料得年年
肠断处
：明月夜，短松
冈
。
Different
from the Chinese, the westerners pay more
attention on the pursuit of
lovers
before marriage instead of recalling and making
sincere condolence to the dead
couple.
Western prefers narrating chasing and appreciating
lovers, the current reality
of life,
which embodies their value of life, like Petrarch
to Laura; Spencer to Elizabeth;
Byron
to Haidé
e; Dante to Beatrice, to name
just a few. Oftentimes, their pursuit of
love is before marriage and they
express directly which has been analyzed above.
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