The New Meter and Prosody
By HuangZhong Mo
What are the metrical features? I agree with some experts in their papers: there exist two problems in the present theoretical inquiry of the new meter, one is that the definition is ambiguous and there is no one definition accepted by all, which leads to different voices for the meter; the other is that the meter criteria are not complete and mature and people tend to overgeneralize it.
Though disagreeing with each other facilitates discussion, as is said that "with varied ways, we realize the same aim", we should also consider the reason for that, which means that we need more efforts to find an aim accepted by everyone. In order to reach an agreement and fulfill the new metrical theorization, i think we must search for its commonality in poetry especially from the relationship between the meter and prosody.
（一）
Musicality is one characteristic of poetry and mainly realized through prosody. Our traditional metrical theory is the theoretical foundation of the new meter. Since its birth, poetry has been inseparable from music. The theoretical evolution of prosody includes three phases from appearance, development to maturity.
In Chinese history of literary, art and aesthetic, “The History Book--about Music” firstly mentioned the prosody, in which it said that “poetry is used to express emotion and if read with Lv and Sheng, it becomes a song which even makes ordinary people and God be harmoniously together.” The so-called “Lv and Sheng” respectively refer to twelve musical tunes and five musical notes, and they come together to make a poem a song. “The History Book--about Music” puts emphasize on prosody which marks the birth of prosodic theory. Zhu Ziqing called it the foundation of Chinese poetic theory, afterwards, “Books of Rites and Music”, “Books of Songs”，“Books of Rites and Music” in the Han Dynasty all expounded the prosody on the basis of it.
Later on, there came into being two styles of poetry--Qu Yuan's non-musical poetry and five-character poetry since Wei and Jin, which leads to the gradual separation of poetry from music. Along with the development of five-character and musical poetry, literary aestheticians realized the importance of prosody.
Their representative work is “Book of the Song Dynasty—Autobiography of Xie Lingyun”, written by Shen Yue in the Northern Dynasty, in which it said, “rhetoric and harmony, they together compose a beautifully-sounded poem, like the perfect combination of earth and sky; To get the effect of alternate high-low pitches and alternate musical notes, it should be a voiceless sound following a voiced one in one poem; Make sure different sounds in a line and different stresses in between two lines. If it can be done well, we call it a perfect poem.
This is Shen Yue proposed compositional criteria of prosody—Yong Ming in Chinese, called “four tones and eight taboos” in literary aesthetics. Here voiceless and voiced sounds respectively refer to “pingsheng” (level tones) and “zesheng” (oblique tones). “In a line” and “In two lines” mean “five characters in each line” and “the relevance of two adjacent lines”, and they all obey the above principles--“four tones and eight taboos”. “Gongyu and Qingzhong” (which refer to tones and stressed or unstressed sounds) are phonological laws in Chinese, namely the change of four tones in lines, which, in the Tang Dynasty, were simplified into two.
Shen Yue bragged that he firstly proposed it and before there was no such kind of prosody. The former prominent poets, such as Zhang Heng, Cao Zhi, Wang Can, Pan Yue, Lu Ji, Xie Lingyun and Yan Yannian, composed prosody by accident. They were never aware of it, so their creation was far off from his. In fact, he just summarized the former achievements of prosody.
（二）
The above prosody exerts great influence on the meter in literary aesthetics, metrical poetry and literary creation.
The literary theoretician Liu Miao, contemporary with Shen Yue supported its application to literary creation and matured it. In his book “Wen Xin Diao Long—Prosody”, he further expounded and developed Shen Yue’s prosody. He said, “In each line it should consist of rising-falling sounds, and between two adjacent lines the same rhymes. Composed by this way, poetry sounds smoothly and beautifully, like pulley tackles and fish scales”.
“The rising sounds”, Liu Yanhe said here, refer to “Ping Sheng-- level tones”, and “the falling sounds” are “Ze Sheng—oblique tones”. The two kinds of sounds come one after the other to make a poem sound smooth and compact. He also said “it is easier to make a prosodic poem than to compose a harmoniously prosodic one.” If you deviate from this law when creating, you never bring out a good poem, even bog in trouble.
Under the influence of prosody, poets in the Tang Dynasty created modern-style metrical poetry. In these poems, rising and falling sounds combined so perfectly that ordinary people could sing it along with music, for example, “Everlasting Regret” and “The Lute” of Bai Juyi, not only children but also famous singers can sing.
The prosody not only exerts great influence on Tang poetry, but also their prose creation. In some proses, such as “The Preface of Tengwang Attic” of Wang Bo, “An Afficial Denunciation Announcement to Wu Zetian” of Luo Binwang and “A letter to Han Jinzhou” of Li Bai, many sentences include rising-falling sounds and rhymes. These rhymes are fairly regular and powerful like horseshoes and these works become examples of the later hoof shaped rhyme.
On the basis of the prosody and practical composition, another literary style namely “ciqu” in Chinese came into being after the Tang Dynasty, in which the metrical lyrics can not only be sung with music but also be printed in paper to spread. Later it became fairly popular and opened a new page for prosperity of Chinese metrical poetry.
（三）
The traditional prosody above should also be applied to the composition of new metrical poetry. Without prosody above, there is no best meter of new poetry, and nor does the most appropriate one exist. If traditional prosody is introduced into the new meter, namely new poetry also pays attention to things like “to get the effect of alternate high-low pitches and alternate musical notes, it should be a voiceless sound followed by a voiced one in one poem. Make sure different sounds in a line and different stresses in two lines”, new poetry will get the following effects:
1. It can improve artistry of new poetry, and make poets consciously take advantage of the rising-falling match of level and oblique tones to get an effect of a strength-weakness circulation and rising-falling alternation, and at last, to reach a height of coherence and smoothness. Except for it, no others can replace its position. If it can become the basic criterion of the new meter, the phonological harmony and artistry of new poetry will be improved dramatically.
2. it strengthens musicality of new poetry, which paves the way for its possibility of becoming popular songs. The popularization and commercialization of poetry, the musicality and singable feature of new poetry, the realization of two factors above lies in the use of traditional prosody. The traditional prosody features with great distinction between strength and weakness, rising and falling, which has something in common with modern music, characterized by strong-weak melody and rhythm. Besides, if other requirements are fulfilled in writhing lyrics, new metrical poetry can enter into singing market.
I once suggested to relevant people that new poetic composition should learn from popular songs and compose lyrics according to popular melody in public. In this way, poems can be sung by common people, and new poets can create another style of lyrics in a new way instead of stereotyped ones like “The Spring in the Royal Garden”，“The Southern Hometown”. At the same time, new poetry can also avoid being marginalized.
3. It can enrich the new melody and further improve the quality of new poetry. At present, the foot theory is introduced into the new metrical field, in which they have truly reached some agreements on creation and also gained some achievements, however, it is brought in from foreign countries. Chinese and English respectively have their own characteristics, if we form the melody, which only considers foot but ignore the double use of rising-falling sounds at the cost of giving up our own phonology, it will be contrary to the features of our own language.
When I shared my opinions above with friends in poetic field, some of them agreed with me but worried about its application to practice, which also became the reason that the new metrical theoreticians impeded the introduction of traditional prosody into the new metrical poetry. Theory, of course, must be based on practice, but also can guide it. Besides, in our country the traditional prosody has a long history and a deep foundation of practice, so it can also play a part in the composition of Chinese new poetry, the only problem is how to guide and utilize it properly. One good example is the couplet, which composes not only simple but also complicated hoof shaped rhythm with it.
Hence on the invitation of relevant people, I transform my thoughts into words to throw a sprat to catch a whale.
(Tr.Hou Zheng ; Proofread by zhao yanchun)
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发表于 2012-7-22 11:27:54
楼主
发表于 2012-8-3 21:11:45
