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Introduction: Aesthetics of Formal Design Section 1: Form and Content In the field of literary art, “form” is defined in relation to “content.” The relationship between “form and content” is as follows: the former refers to the “formal element” and the “immediate element,” while the latter refers to the “representative element” or the “associative element.”¹ Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831) held that so-called “content” is the inner “essence” or “meaning,” whereas “form” is the external “sign” or “mode of expression.” As for the relationship between the two, Hegel stated: “Content is nothing other than form transformed into content; form is nothing other than content transformed into form.”² “Artistic beauty should be an organic unity of formal beauty and content beauty. Form is governed by content, yet in turn influences the expression of content and possesses relatively independent aesthetic value. A single form can often express multiple contents, and a single content can also be expressed through multiple forms.”³ The “form” of modern poetry refers to the modes of expression that, in terms of outward appearance, distinguish it from novels and prose. “Segmentation” and “lineation” are outward features of modern poetry formed through convention; however, the form of “prose poetry” is equivalent to prose and is not constrained by these features. The “form” of modern poetry possesses “regularity,” “constraint,” and a “differentiating function.” “Regularity” refers to rhetorical figures that take formal design as their primary mode of expression—such as repetition, gradation, antithesis, and parallelism—and their organic correspondence with aesthetic concepts of “formal beauty,” such as uniformity, proportion, symmetry, and balance. “Constraint” refers to the fact that form imposes certain limitations on the methods and styles of content expression; for example, parallelism requires the arrangement of three or more phrases or sentences, while antithesis involves constraints on word count, syntactic positioning, and grammatical symmetry. The “differentiating function” refers not only to the distinctions among different rhetorical forms—which can be identified through comparison of their formal conditions—but also to the classification of literary genres such as poetry, novels, prose, and drama based on fundamental outward features such as segmentation, lineation, and the presence of narrative or plot. In addition to segmentation and lineation, the form of modern poetry also includes outward modes such as “prose poetry” and “visualization.” The present chapter focuses on analysis from the perspective of rhetorical “formal design,” and therefore essentially excludes such dimensions of modern poetry as “prose poetry” and “visualization,” which go beyond the conventional framework of rhetorical formal design. Section 2: Aesthetics of Formal Design in Modern Poetry 1. Formal Beauty The “formal design” of modern poetry is grounded in aesthetics. So-called “formal beauty,” according to George Santayana (1863–1952), arises primarily from the arrangement of various materials and their ideal combinations, forming certain perceptual forms that generate aesthetic experience.⁴ Hegel maintained that the content of beauty is “the Idea embodying absolute spirit,” while the form of beauty is “the sensuous appearance through which the Idea manifests itself.” “The content of art is the Idea, and the form of art is the sensuous image addressed to the senses. Art must reconcile these two aspects into a free and unified whole.”⁵ Formal beauty refers to the aesthetic qualities manifested by the natural properties (color, shape, sound) of the material elements that constitute the external form of things, as well as by their combinational principles (such as uniformity, proportion, symmetry, balance, repetition, rhythm, and unity in diversity). In modern poetry, what kinds of formal designs do poets adopt to “manifest the sensuous appearance of the Idea”? How do poets grasp perceptual materials such as vocabulary, imagery, and rhythm, and combine them purposefully according to aesthetic formal principles? The following table provides a systematic outline: Table 1: From Universality (Unity) to Particularity (Differentiation) Primitive Stage | Stage of Formal Differentiation | Stage of Formal Transformation All rhetorical figures that express formal beauty—such as repetition, antithesis, palindrome, parallelism, gradation, anadiplosis, embedding, inversion, interweaving, and leap—are outwardly distinguishable forms. From an aesthetic perspective, these are referred to as “external forms.” They all possess certain “combinational principles,” including uniformity, proportion, symmetry, balance, repetition, hierarchy, rhythm, the interplay of the real and the virtual, closure, primary–secondary relations, transformation, irregularity, interruption, succession, linkage, augmentation and reduction, unity in diversity, and differentiation from universality. These principles serve to present their distinctive aesthetic qualities.⁶ From an aesthetic standpoint, these combinational principles are used to appropriately express content (emotion, meaning, and reasoning of the work) and are also referred to as “internal form.” Table 2: Aesthetic Foundations of Rhetorical Forms of Formal Design Formal Design (External Form) | Aesthetic Foundation (Internal Form) “Combinational principles” can further be divided into two levels: “relations among parts” and “overall combinational relations.” The former mainly includes symmetry and proportion, symmetry and balance, repetition and rhythm; the latter mainly refers to “harmony” (melody).⁷ “Harmony” is the highest level of the abstract form of natural beauty; its essence is precisely “unity in diversity,” including “contrast and harmony,” as well as “disharmonious harmony” and “unity of inconsistency.” Unity in diversity is the highest law of formal beauty; it is the concrete manifestation of the law of unity of opposites in human aesthetic activity. “Diversity” refers to the differences among the formal elements that constitute a whole, while “unity” refers to the coordination of these differences, reflecting the integral connection of things. Thus, unity in diversity means the inclusion of multiplicity within unity and the integration of multiplicity into unity, expressing a certain consistency within rich and varied forms.⁸ 2. Levels of Formal Beauty Hegel believed that the “abstract form of natural beauty” originates from external, actual appearances, that is, “the unity determined by external factors as manifested in external reality.”⁹ Its modes of expression possess hierarchical relations, progressing from “uniformity” to “balance and symmetry,” to “conformity to law,” and finally to “harmony.”¹⁰ (1) Uniformity “Uniformity” is the consistency manifested in the external appearance of natural beauty; it is “the consistent repetition of identical forms, a repetition that confers determinacy upon the form of the object.”¹¹ “Uniformity” is a primary concept of formal beauty, corresponding to “irregularity and deviation.” It generally refers to the repeated equivalence or symmetry among multiple identical or similar parts within a form.¹² The repetitive form expressed in repetition is precisely “the consistent repetition of identical forms.” Such repetition itself possesses determinative force and does not disrupt formal unity; scholar Huang Qingxuan refers to this as “uniform multiplicity.”¹² In regulated verse, the arrangement of syllables is entirely uniform. “The fundamental aesthetic characteristic of uniformity is that it creates a specific atmosphere, giving a sense of stability, solemnity, grandeur, and strength.”¹³ (2) Balance and Symmetry Form cannot remain indefinitely at the level of external uniformity—that is, the determinacy of uniformity. “When unity and non-unity are integrated, difference intrudes into this simple identity and disrupts it, thus giving rise to balance and symmetry.”¹⁴ In aesthetics, “balance” refers to “the spatial relationship in plastic arts in which different parts and elements of the same artwork are both opposed and unified.”¹⁵ Balance generally involves variation between opposing sides—for example, a balance scale or a seesaw—where the forms may differ but their weights correspond. In poetic composition, the more relevant concept is “symmetrical balance.”¹⁶ “Symmetry” refers to “the absolute equilibrium constituted by the proportional combination of identical or similar formal elements. Because of its relatively small degree of variation, symmetrical form generally possesses less vitality but is well suited to expressing stillness, producing a sense of orderliness, stability, and tranquility.”¹⁷ Thus, symmetry represents a kind of mechanical balance. “Balance and symmetry” do not merely repeat a single abstractly identical form, but combine it with another form of the same nature. This other form, considered in itself, is also uniform, yet in comparison with the original form it is not identical. Through this combination, a new, more determinate, and more complex unity necessarily arises. If there is only formal identity and repetition of the same determinacy, balance and symmetry cannot be achieved. To attain balance and symmetry, there must be differences in determinacy—such as size, position, shape, color, and tone—and these differences must be combined in a unified manner. Only by uniting differing determinacies into a unified form can balance and symmetry be produced.¹⁸ For example, the famous line by the early Tang poet Wang Bo: “The setting glow and the lone wild duck fly together; the autumn waters share one color with the vast sky.” If coded according to spatial distance (AB) and dynamism versus stillness (ab), then “setting glow” is Ab, “lone wild duck” is Ba, “autumn waters” is Ba, and “vast sky” is Ab. The combinational relation is: Ab1 + Ba1 ── Ba2 + Ab2 Two sets of mutually opposing images form a contextual relation; when further expanded, they produce the following cross-symmetrical structure: Ab1 Ba1 Forms of the same nature yet differing from one another manifest the “differentiation of universality.” By combining differing determinacies into a unified form, “unity in diversity” is produced. Unity in diversity includes two basic types: one is the unity among opposing elements—“opposites generate harmony,” such as bow and arrow or reflection and object—this is called “contrast”; the other is the unity among multiple non-opposing elements, forming less pronounced variation, such as flowers, grass, bees, and butterflies—this is called “harmony.”¹⁹ Antithesis and parallelism are precisely the “unity in diversity” formed after the “differentiation of universality.” The aesthetic foundation of antithesis lies in the “unity of contrast,” while that of parallelism lies in the “unity of harmony.” (3) Conformity to Law “Conformity to law,” although it is not yet the complete unity and freedom of the subject, already constitutes a totality of essential differences. It is not merely manifested as differences and oppositions; rather, within its totality it expresses unity and interdependence. This kind of lawful unity, although still applicable only within the domain of quantity, is unlike uniformity or balanced symmetry, which are external and can be expressed merely in numerical differences. Instead, within these differences, a qualitative relationship is introduced. What is observed in conformity to law is neither the abstract repetition of identical determinations nor the alternation between identity and difference, but the simultaneous coexistence of essentially different aspects. “Conformity to law” refers to the simultaneous coexistence of essentially different aspects, expressing both differences and their unity. For example, in the system of regulated verse and ci-poetry patterns in the Chinese language, various formal rules governing rhyme, tonal patterns, and parallelism demonstrate different modes of expression. The “regularization (standardization)” of these expressive forms reflects a unity of differences (a unity of diversity). On the one hand, different expressive modes exist independently, already embodying a spirit of plural differentiation; on the other hand, different themes employing the same expressive mode can, in essence, be regarded as a “unity of diversity.” The ci-poetry tune patterns of the Song Dynasty are, in nature, “standardized metrical forms”; poets compose lyrics according to fixed tunes and must conform to strict metrical requirements. (4) Harmony “Harmony” is the highest level of the abstract forms of natural beauty. Harmony reveals, on a qualitative level, a coordinated and unified relationship among differences. On the one hand, it presents the totality of essential differences; on the other hand, it eliminates the opposition and conflict among these differences. Thus, their mutual dependence and internal connections appear as unity. Harmony removes the opposition and conflict inherent in qualitative differences and presents a state of coordination and unity—mutual dependence and well-integrated internal relationships. For example: “Pitiable are the bones by the Wuding River, / Yet still the beloved in dreams of the inner chamber” (Tang Dynasty, Chen Tao, Song of Longxi). Through the juxtaposition of two sets of contrasting images—“riverside” versus “inner chamber,” and “fallen soldiers’ bones” versus “wives”—the poem conveys how war cruelly tears apart marital love, producing separation by life and death, expressed with grief and helplessness. What the wife longs for is not her husband’s glorious martyrdom nor triumphant return, but simply the chance for him to come back alive. These two lines eliminate the opposition and conflict between the differing realities—“death” and “life,” “war” and “marriage”—and express an anti-war idea, which is fundamentally a product of harmony and coordination. Section 3: Poetry, Music, and Rhythm 1. The Three Elements of Music: Rhythm, Melody, and Harmony Rhythm (movement), melody (tune), and harmony constitute the three fundamental elements of music. (1) Rhythm Rhythm refers to the rise and fall, the acceleration and deceleration of music, formed through the combination of the duration and intensity of sounds. It is an indispensable element of music. In the development of music, rhythm emerges first; without rhythm, music cannot exist. Human actions—such as breathing, heartbeat, walking—as well as natural phenomena like tides, are all closely related to rhythm. (2) Melody Melody refers to the continuous progression of musical tones, formed by the combination of pitch, duration, tempo, and intensity. In poetic form, it refers to the tonal line (line of intonation) created by the rise and fall of pitch, modulation, and the length of syllables in the linear arrangement of words (each line). (3) Harmony Harmony refers to the composite sound produced when two or more tones of different pitches occur simultaneously or successively. Even the music of primitive peoples contains examples of harmony, such as the “eight-part polyphony” of the Bunun people of Taiwan’s indigenous groups. A melody without harmony can still constitute music (as in folk songs), but it cannot exist independently of rhythm. A sequence of tones without variation in duration would be monotonous. Therefore, melody and rhythm are mutually complementary. 2. Poetry and Music Musical Rhythm and Linguistic Rhythm “Poetry is a form of music and also a form of language. Music possesses only purely formal rhythm and lacks linguistic rhythm, whereas poetry contains both.” Poetry retains musical rhythm while also possessing linguistic rhythm. “Music uses only sound, whereas poetry uses language, and sound is an important component of language. In music, sound functions through the ‘harmony’ of rhythm and pitch; in poetry, it functions in the same way.” Among poetic schools, the French Symbolists are most closely related to music. Some Symbolist poets possessed “color-hearing,” meaning they associated sounds with colors, leading to the theory of “synesthesia” (sensory correspondence): natural phenomena such as sound, smell, taste, and touch, though seemingly unrelated, actually resonate with one another, mutually evoke and symbolize each other. Thus, many images can be evoked through sound. Later, they further advocated the theory of “pure poetry,” insisting that poetry should directly move emotions without reliance on rational thought, and that poetry should affect people entirely through sound, like music. This represents an instance of “overcorrection,” often seen in avant-garde movements. Although both music and poetry use sound, music employs sound only as purely formal elements of rhythm and melody, whereas the sound used in poetry is the sound of language, which necessarily carries meaning. Poetry cannot consist of sound alone without meaning, nor can sound replace or fully express linguistic meaning. In other words: “Beyond sound, poetry contains verbal meaning, which often evokes a concrete situation. Therefore, the emotions expressed in poetry are directed, concrete, and meaningful… The transmission and permeation of such concrete emotions rely less on pure sound rhythm and more on verbal meaning. Although both poetry and music use rhythm, the rhythms they employ differ: poetic rhythm is governed by meaning, while musical rhythm is purely formal and without meaning. Although both poetry and music can evoke emotions, the nature of those emotions differs—one is concrete, the other abstract.” 3. Poetry and Rhythm (1) External Rhythm and Internal Rhythm “Rhythm,” by its nature, can be divided into “objective external rhythm” and “internal rhythm of body and mind.” These two kinds of rhythm influence and transform each other. “The resulting impression in the mind is subjective rhythm; the rhythm of poetry and music belongs to this subjective rhythm. It is the result of the interaction between mind and object, not a physical fact.” (2) The Relationship Between Time and Force The formation of rhythm cannot be separated from two essential relationships: time and force (intensity). A single sound cannot constitute rhythm, but when combined with temporal relationships, it can become rhythm. When two or more sounds or movements are present, differences in intensity allow them to combine and repeat, producing a “sense of rhythm.” This interplay of strength and weakness is called the “rhythm of force.” (3) Patterns of Rhythm The rhythms of poetry and music often follow certain “patterns.” Within variation, there is order; while flowing and extending, they often return to the point of origin, forming regularities. These patterns, once internalized, become “psychological patterns” and generate “expectation.” Whether expectations are fulfilled or not becomes the source of rhythmic pleasure or displeasure. These patterns form their own regularities. For example, “parallelism” is a common form in poetry and song, facilitating the use of the same melody and rhythm while allowing similar forms and meanings to produce cyclical repetition. (4) Composition of Rhythm The composition of rhythm “is formed through the flexible application of four principles—transformation, repetition, gradation, and overlapping—thus creating modulation and cadence… Among these principles, gradation produces harmony with subtle differences through systematic increase or decrease, generating movement. The rhetorical device of ‘gradation’ is based on this principle. Transformation serves as the primary rhythmic basis of ‘variation.’ Repetition and overlapping form the rhythmic basis of repetition.” In fact, the rhythmic foundation of modern poetry is not limited to these four principles, but should be examined from the perspective of formal aesthetics:
(5) Kinetic Rhythm and Acoustic Rhythm Rhythm that can be perceived visually is called “kinetic rhythm,” while rhythm that can be heard is called “acoustic rhythm.” These two sensory rhythms occupy a central position in the creation and reading of modern poetry. They complement and influence each other, often interpenetrating and producing synesthetic effects. For example: “My clattering horse hooves are a beautiful mistake / I am not a returning man, but a passerby” (Zheng Chouyu, Mistake). The “clattering hooves” primarily appeal to auditory “acoustic rhythm,” supplemented by the suggestive “kinetic rhythm” of “returning man versus passerby.” A woman waiting by the window hears the approaching hooves from afar and mistakenly believes her lover has arrived, only to realize, as the sound fades away, that it is not him. In her mind unfolds the entire process of perceiving the rider as not a “returning man” but a “passerby.” Another example: “Evening bell / is the mountain path of descending tourists / ferns / along the white stone steps / chewing their way downward…” (Luo Fu, Jinlong Temple). The sound of the “evening bell” is auditory rhythm, while the descending tourists form visual kinetic rhythm. Through metaphorical linkage, auditory and visual sensations interact, creating the image of tourists descending along a winding path that echoes the lingering, winding sound of the bell. “In aesthetic synesthesia, the most common is the interaction between visual and auditory perception, allowing the observer to ‘hear’ through sight and ‘see’ through sound.” Section 4: The Rhythm of Modern Poetry 1. Different Types of Rhythm (1) Regulated Verse and Free Verse The predecessor of free verse is “vernacular poetry.” During the May Fourth Movement, vernacular poetry advocated breaking free from the metrical constraints of traditional regulated verse. The “lineation” and “stanza division” of vernacular poetry were unconsciously influenced by Western free verse. The differences between regulated verse and free verse, when examined from the perspective of rhythmic form, are as follows: The characteristics of free verse include: Because regulated verse possesses numerous formal and rhythmic “rules” (such as line count, character count, rhyme, tonal patterns, and parallelism), it clearly holds an advantage over free verse in terms of formal rhythm, including “pause rhythm,” “length rhythm,” “phonological rhythm,” “tonal rhythm,” and “stress–intonation rhythm.” In free verse, the varying length of lines leads to an indeterminate number of pauses, and the absence of rhyme and parallelism causes the loss of external symmetry and phonological beauty. It can only rely on internal rhythm within the poetic lines—namely, semantic rhythm and emotional rhythm. Since regulated verse is constrained in line count and character count, it mainly employs two-syllable and three-syllable pauses, and rarely uses four-syllable units. Its form is orderly and balanced. As scholar Chen Benyi points out: The emergence of metrical modern poetry demonstrates that even under the sweeping influence of free verse, some poets (such as Dai Wangshu) still maintained a positive attitude toward composing under metrical constraints. Metrical modern poetry is primarily influenced by the Western sonnet form. The sonnet can be categorized, in terms of stanza and line division, as follows: (2) The Rhythm of Modern Poetry and Prose Aristotle, in Rhetoric, points out that “prose should have rhythm, but not meter; otherwise it becomes verse.” Meter is an inherent feature of traditional poetry, whereas the rhythmic characteristic of prose lies in the “combination of regular and irregular structures.” Within paragraphs, prose occasionally incorporates metrically regular sentences to create a “tightened rhythm,” which serves to regulate the rhythm of prose passages. The alternation between regular and irregular sentence forms results in a rhythm that is sometimes tight and sometimes relaxed—this is a defining feature of prose. Modern poetry no longer emphasizes tonal patterns, parallelism, and end rhyme as traditional poetry does, but it does not completely abandon these external rhythmic forms. “Metrical modern poetry” retains parallelism and end rhyme, while “free verse” adopts a prose-like rhythm characterized by a mixture of regular and irregular structures. As for “unrhymed poetry,” its rhythmic form is even closer to prose. The “regular sentence forms” found in both modern poetry and prose often derive from rhetorical devices such as repetition, parallelism, and antithesis. These three forms appear more frequently in poetic lines of modern poetry, whereas in prose they serve merely as embellishments, introducing slight variations in rhythm. 2. Seven Rhythmic Forms in the Chinese Language “Chinese is a language primarily composed of monosyllabic morphemes. Each syllable consists of three components: initial, final, and tone. This determines that pause rhythm (or length rhythm), tonal rhythm, and phonological rhythm constitute the principal melody of Chinese rhythm.” Chinese possesses seven rhythmic forms, including “pause rhythm,” “phonological rhythm,” and “tonal (level-oblique) rhythm,” all of which can be marked in written form; “tempo rhythm,” “stress rhythm,” and “intonation rhythm,” which have no written markers; and “length rhythm,” which appears to have a dual or ambiguous nature. “All languages use metrical feet as their basic units, but the forms of expression differ. Chinese primarily constructs rhythmic cycles through pause rhythm, whereas English primarily constructs rhythmic cycles through stress patterns, since the time intervals between stressed syllables are equal.” This clearly demonstrates that Chinese, as a “monosyllabic script,” and English, as an “alphabetic script,” differ not only in syllabic structure (number of syllables per foot and pause units), but also in their rhythmic emphasis. For example, the word “香蕉” (banana) in Chinese consists of two characters forming a disyllabic foot, whereas the English word “banana” consists of three syllables forming a trisyllabic foot. In addition, their rhythmic systems emphasize different aspects (pause rhythm versus stress rhythm). In verse forms such as the five-character and seven-character regulated poems of the Tang Dynasty, lines are arranged according to equal-length phonetic units, and length rhythm manifests as symmetrical and orderly formal beauty. In contrast, the long and short lines of Song ci poetry and Yuan qu drama are irregular, and length rhythm appears as a form of beauty that incorporates variation within order. Both conform to the formal beauty of pause rhythm. Meanwhile, alliteration, rhyme repetition, and end rhyme demonstrate the tonal beauty of phonological rhythm, and tonal patterns (level and oblique tones) provide the formal foundation for intonation rhythm. “Tonal rhythm,” within length rhythm, overlaps with pause rhythm, tonal rhythm, and phonological rhythm, forming a rhythmic combination of visual beauty, sonic beauty, and rhyming beauty. 4. Tonal Pattern (Level–Oblique Rhythm) “Chinese is a tonal language; every syllable must carry a tone that serves a semantic function. Compared with non-tonal languages, in Chinese sequences, the level–oblique tonal pattern formed by the unity of oppositions among the four tones—level (yin), rising (yang), departing (shang), and entering (qu)—constitutes a rhythmic form of Chinese.”42 Scholar Wang Li considers level and oblique tones to be a kind of “tonal relationship,” pointing out that, in terms of syllabic duration, level tones are long and neither rise nor fall, whereas the rising, departing, and entering tones are short, either rising or falling. “The alternation of level and oblique tones is also an alternation of long and short durations; the alternation of level tones with rising–falling or checked tones.”43 In new poetry, “level–oblique tones” have almost been completely “forgotten,” unlike the form of “antithesis” and the phonetic harmony of “rhyme,” which can still play an active role in “metrical forms” and “ballad forms.” In fact, the level–oblique arrangement within poetic lines relates to syllabic length, speed, strength, and intonation. Since the lines of new poetry vary in length, if some arrangement is made within the lines, handling level and oblique tones through forms such as “contrast” and “recurrence” can often harmonize the rhythm and enhance the musicality of the verse. The poet Xiang Yang appears to be one of the few who has mastered the function of tonal pattern and can apply it with ease: Xiang Yang, *“Water Song”*44 Cheers. Twenty years later Casually. Twenty years before This poem can be regarded as a typical example of the use of tonal pattern. It is structured in the form of a metrically regulated modern poem employing “inter-stanza contrast.” Between corresponding lines of the two stanzas, it skillfully presents opposing yet balanced level–oblique rhythms. When recited, one senses that syllabic length, speed, strength, and intonation are all highly regular and symmetrical; when listening with closed eyes, the rise and fall of the syllables are particularly pleasing and moving. Its tonal pattern may be annotated as follows: Level level. Oblique level level oblique Level oblique. Oblique level level level In the initial-position characters, lines 2 and 7, 3 and 8, 5 and 10 form “oppositions”; in the final-position characters, lines 1 and 6, 2 and 7, 3 and 8, and 4 and 9 also form “oppositions.” 5. Tempo Rhythm (Fast–Slow Rhythm) “The criterion for identifying tempo rhythm lies in the variation of the duration of metrical feet: when differences in the duration of metrical feet produce regular changes in speech rate, this is called tempo rhythm. … Tempo rhythm can also refer to the periodic variation in syllabic duration, in which case tempo rhythm is complementary to syllabic length.”45 In other words: Moreover, “tempo rhythm is a rhythmic form formed by the opposition, alternation, and cyclical recurrence of slow and rapid metrical feet.”46 For example, Xu Huizhi’s *“Beyond Dreams · 2 Failed in the Examination”*47: Cold Food Festival day In the long line “stepping on my own long shadow,” among its four syllabic units, the segment “long long” contains level-tone syllables, whose duration is longer than the other trisyllabic units. In “a very thin scholar,” among its three syllabic units, the final disyllabic unit “scholar” consists of level tones, giving it a longer duration; yet in terms of speech rate, the three units in “very thin” are slower. The lines “a very thin scholar” and “a dim crow flying out” have similar rhythm and comparable speech rate. As for “caught in my outstretched hand,” the two disyllabic units clearly accelerate in speech rate. Another example is Xiao Xiao’s *“Even Stones Have Tears to Shed · No. 2”*48: Spring thunder never startled me, autumn moon never fulfilled me In the final three lines, the speech rate clearly accelerates. Because the preceding line “from the darkness of four billion light-years” creates a sense of distance through exaggeration, it initiates an accelerating “semantic rhythm.” At “urgent urgent urgent urgent,” the syllabic duration and speech rate reach their peak, while after “bursting forth,” both duration and speed lengthen again. 6. Stress Rhythm (Heavy–Light Rhythm) “Stress rhythm is a rhythmic form formed by the alternating succession of stressed and unstressed syllables. The most typical representative of stress rhythm in Chinese is kuaiban (fast-paced storytelling with rhythmic accompaniment)… In kuaiban, every syllable must carry a metrical stress, so the sense of rhythm is especially strong; in prose and spoken language, stress rhythm is often composed of contrastive stresses.”49 In new poetry, “recitation poetry” often exhibits orderly rises and falls of syllables, clear tonal variations, and regular patterns of strength, lightness, slowness, and rapidity, resulting in particularly vivid rhythm. Examples include Bai Ling’s “The Great Yellow River” and “Kaoliang of Kinmen,” Luo Men’s “Fort McLean,” and Luo Fu’s “The Legend of Li Bai” and “Song of Everlasting Sorrow.” In new poetry, if the final syllable of a line is an oblique tone, or if it is a rhyming syllable within a passage, it is usually the location of stress. In addition, in forms such as “repetition” and “anadiplosis,” repeated words are often the stressed syllables; in “parallelism,” the stressed syllables of each line fall at corresponding syntactic positions. Luo Fu, *“Song of Everlasting Sorrow”*50 [IV] [VIII] The four repeated words “stamping” form continuous “stressed syllables.” In “If it is water, it will inevitably rise into clouds / If it is earth, it will inevitably be trampled into parched moss,” the repeated words in analogous sentences are also stressed syllables. In “A chrysanthemum at her lips / A black well in her eyes / A war within her body,” within the parallel structure, the stressed syllables in each line fall at corresponding positions. 7. Intonation Rhythm (Rise–Fall Rhythm) “In the flow of speech, when the tones of sentences—rising, falling, level, and curved—form a regular and unified periodic combination, an intonation rhythm is formed within the phonetic chain.”51 “Within a speech segment, intonation rhythm is embodied in the regular periodic combination of opposing yet complementary sentence tones—rising, falling, level, and curved—thus forming a rhythmic cycle of intonation within the segment. In a phonetic sequence, each character observes level–oblique tonal patterns (character tones), while each sentence also has a sentence tone according to the needs of meaning expression. Within a segment, the alternating rise and fall of sentence tones across sentences constitutes the beauty of modulation and cadence.”52 In segments of new poetry, if the final syllable of a line is a level tone of the “high level” type, the sentence tone is usually flat (—); if the final syllable is a “rising level” tone or the sentence is interrogative, the tone is usually rising (↗); if the final syllable is an oblique tone of the “departing” or “entering” type, or an exclamatory sentence, it is often falling (↘); as for the “rising” tone, it is often a curved tone (ˇ). However, this is only a general principle and must be adjusted according to “semantic rhythm,” depending on the actual needs of expression. For example: Zhang Cuo, *“Gazing at Each Other”*53 That is another kind of pure contradiction (↘): the east wind can melt white snow (ˇ) In this passage, the lines exhibit alternating rise and fall in sentence tone, undulating rhythmically. The movement of the rhythm resembles waves, with crests and troughs linked in orderly succession, setting off the atmosphere of helplessness akin to “this feeling could become a memory, yet even then it was already lost.” From the above analysis of rhythmic forms, it can be understood that the formation of rhythm in Chinese arises from oppositional factors such as sound duration, pitch, intensity, and timbre. It is the relative and combinatory relationships among these factors. In other words, these “oppositional factors alternate, recur, and cycle, forming periodic combinations,” thus producing pause rhythm, long–short rhythm, tempo rhythm, stress rhythm, tonal pattern, intonation rhythm, and phonetic rhyme rhythm within the phonetic chain. In actual usage, these oppositional factors do not appear in isolation; they often work together. The more oppositional factors appear in the phonetic chain, the stronger the resulting sense of rhythm.54 II. Fixed Rhythm and Free Rhythm (1) Fixed Rhythm “The typical form of fixed rhythm is regulated verse. Regulated verse has strict and fixed patterns and rules; from tonal patterns, phonetic rhyme, number of characters and lines, to overall structure, all follow strict regulations.”55 The formal and phonetic constraints of regulated verse give it a more pronounced rhythm than free verse. Often, in order to accommodate “rhythm,” adjustments such as “fronting,” “inversion,” and “compression” are made in word order, resulting in the phenomenon where “semantic rhythm” yields to “metrical rhythm.”56 The status of “rhythm” in regulated verse is almost equal to that of meaning, neither outweighing the other, because “rhythm” and “meaning” are closely integrated. This represents a high degree of unity and artistic fusion between “form” and “content.” It is therefore no surprise that for centuries most literati have preferred to “dance in shackles,” composing within metrical constraints, rather than invest effort in “opening new paths.” (2) Free Section 3: Cyclical Patterns of Chinese Rhythm “The cyclical patterns of Chinese rhythm consist of three types, namely the repetitive type, the circulatory type, and the contrastive type.”57 In Chinese discourse segments, these three common forms are respectively manifested as rhetorical figures such as “reduplication,” “anadiplosis” or “circulation,” and “contrast.” Cyclical patterning is an essential condition for the formation of rhythm. “The elements that form rhythm are, first, oppositional factors, and second, cyclical sequences. The oppositional factors of speech sounds include long and short sounds, stressed and unstressed sounds, high and low pitch, initials and finals, and so on.”58 These oppositional factors, when alternated regularly (that is, combined cyclically), form repetitive, circulatory, or contrastive patterns, thereby constituting “rhythm.” (1) Repetitive Cyclical Arrangement Its arrangement takes the form of “AB–AB” or “ABC–DEC,” as in the following poetic lines:
This type of arrangement frequently appears in poetic lines accompanied by the rhetorical figure of “reduplication.” (2) Contrastive Cyclical Arrangement Its arrangement takes the form of “AB–BA,” “ABB–BAA,” or “ABA–BAB,” as in the following poetic lines:
This type of arrangement often appears in poetic lines in the form of the rhetorical figure of “contrast.” (3) Circulatory and Anadiplosis Cyclical Arrangement Its arrangement takes the form of “ABC–CBA” or “ABC–CDE,” as in the following poetic lines:
This type of arrangement appears in poetic lines in which “ABC–CBA” corresponds to the rhetorical figure of “circulation,” and “ABC–CDE” corresponds to “anadiplosis.” Due to the high level of technical difficulty in its application, circulatory arrangements are relatively rare in modern poetry. [Notes]
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