Chapter 2 Parallel Forms (Part II): “Liejin” (Listing Brocade)

Section 1: Liejin

1. Definition and Function of Liejin

“Liejin” is a rhetorical device in which several nouns or noun phrases are arranged together to form a sentence. The sentence contains no predicate components, yet it can appear “separated but actually connected,” expressing complex thoughts and emotions, and depicting things from multiple perspectives.

Mainland scholar Tan Yongxiang states in New Rhetorical Devices:
“In classical poetry, there is a rather peculiar sentence pattern, namely one composed of nouns or noun-centered attributive structures, without adjectival predicates, yet it can describe scenery and express emotion; without verbal predicates, yet it can narrate events and express feelings. This linguistic phenomenon… we call it ‘Liejin’.”

“Liejin” is also called “Liejing” (listing scenery). Tan Yongxiang further says:
“By combining key nouns or noun-centered attributive phrases into a multi-item special non-subject-predicate sentence, used to describe scenery and express emotion, narrate events and convey feelings, this rhetorical device is called ‘Liejin’. In short, Liejin is the chaining of key words within the intended semantic meaning.”

From a formal perspective, Liejin also belongs to the family of “arrangement and combination” devices (parallelism, gradation, antithesis), and is most closely related to parallelism.

“Liejin is the arrangement of several nouns or noun phrases to form a sentence. The sentence contains no predicate components, yet it can express complex thoughts and emotions.”

Through the arrangement of several nouns or noun phrases, sentences are constructed and linked together into poetry or prose. This is similar to film editing, where individual “close-up shots” are combined through “directional layered superimposition” (homogeneous overlay) into a visual scene, and narrative and emotion are indirectly conveyed through the scene.

“Liejin” is a special form of expression in classical Chinese poetry, in which a series of nouns or noun phrases are carefully selected and arranged, forming vivid and perceptible images, used to set the atmosphere, create artistic conception, and express emotion.

2. Historical Development of Liejin

In classical Chinese poetry, ci, and qu, due to limited textual space, there is a common pursuit of concise language and vivid imagery, in order to express profound artistic conception and lasting emotional resonance. Therefore, words or terms that do not significantly affect expression are often omitted, and causal or sequential connections between sentences may also be left unexpressed. As a result, poetry often produces a sense of “seemingly broken yet actually connected, apparently separated yet spiritually unified.”

In classical poetry, “Liejin” is often inserted between lines. Because it does not use function words, verbs, or adjectives, such sentences composed of noun phrases usually follow rhythmic patterns such as “2–2–1” (five-character lines), “2–2–2” (six-character lines), and “2–2–3” (seven-character lines), with relatively little variation in rhythm.

In addition to its own rhetorical features and effects, Liejin is often combined with metaphor, parallelism, antithesis, and metonymy to enhance expressive power. Therefore, careful appreciation is required.

In Tang dynasty five-character poetry, there are many excellent examples of Liejin, such as:
“Chicken crowing, thatched inn, night; footprints on the wooden bridge, frost.”
(Wen Tingyun, Morning Departure from Shangshan)

Ming scholar Li Dongyang, in Huailutang Shihua, commented:
“Chicken sound, thatched inn, moon; footprints, wooden bridge, frost. People only know it can express wandering sorrow and rural scenes beyond words, but do not know that within these two lines not a single idle word is used; only crucial scenic nouns are extracted, and yet the sound is sonorous and the imagery complete, which is truly rare.”

In only ten characters, six types of scenery are written: chicken sound, thatched inn, moon, footprints, wooden bridge, frost. There is sound and color; distant view and close view. There is not a single verb in the two lines, yet actions of people and objects are fully implied. No explicit emotional word is used, yet emotion overflows beyond the text. This is the subtlety of Liejin: without ornamentation, it can vividly depict things.

More importantly, through the arrangement of these nouns and phrases, a bleak early-morning landscape is constructed, subtly revealing the loneliness and hardship of a traveler on an early journey.

Another example:
“Fine grass, gentle wind, riverbank; lonely boat under high wall in night.”
(Du Fu, Writing My Thoughts on a Night Journey)

This is also a sequence of nouns and noun phrases. The “camera” first presents nearby scenery, then pulls back to reveal a vast scene:
“Stars hang low over the wide plain, moon surges with the great river.”

Seven-character poems are equally remarkable, such as:
“Thirty years of fame, dust and earth; eight thousand miles of road, clouds and moon.”
(Yue Fei, Man Jiang Hong)

“Warship in night snow at Guazhou ferry; fast horse in autumn wind at Dazosan Pass.”
(Lu You, Written in Anger)

In Song ci poetry:
“Where does the drunken soul awaken tonight? Willow bank, morning wind, waning moon.”
(Liu Yong, Rain Bell)

This famous line uses Liejin by placing willow bank, morning wind, and waning moon together, appearing purely descriptive on the surface, yet filled with deep emotion.

Another example:
“How much idle sorrow is there? A river of misty grass, a city full of flying catkins, plum rain in yellowing season.”
(He Zhu, Qingyu Case)

“Court scenery, mountain years, sea emotions.”
(Liu Chenweng, Willow Tip Green: Spring Feeling)

Both poets use layered associations and triple metaphors, turning abstract emotions into concrete imagery.

In Yuan qu poetry:
“Riverside pavilion, distant trees, fading sunset glow; light smoke, fragrant grass, flat sand… water village, mountain town, homes.”
(Wu Xiyi, Tianjingsha)

“Spring mountain, warm sun, gentle wind; balcony, pavilions, curtains; willow swings in courtyard; oriole cries, swallows dance, bridge, flowing water, falling flowers.”
(Bai Pu, Tianjingsha: Spring)

“After rain, clouds disperse, waves rise; tall building, cool water, sweet melon; green trees shade carved eaves; silk curtains, bamboo mats, jade beauty with fan.”
(Bai Pu, Tianjingsha: Summer)

“Broken hat, coarse clothes, thin horse… small bridge, wind, snow, plum blossoms.”
(Zhang Xiaoshan, Tianjingsha: Evening Walk)

These are all landscape expressions, presented through successive visual framing like double exposure.

Among them, Ma Zhiyuan’s Tianjingsha: Autumn Thoughts is the most famous:
Withered vines, old trees, evening crows;
Small bridge, flowing water, homes;
Ancient road, west wind, thin horse.

The nine nouns in the first three lines appear unrelated, yet together they form a unified emotional thread, depicting a bleak autumn dusk and expressing the loneliness of a wandering traveler.

In six-character quatrains, Liejin appears even more frequently. For example, Wang Wei’s Field Joy Poems:
“Peach red with lingering rain, willow green with morning mist. Flowers fall, servants have not swept; orioles sing, mountain guest still sleeps.”

Here, “peach red,” “rain,” “willow green,” “morning mist,” “flowers,” “servants,” “orioles,” “mountain guest” are arranged sequentially, forming a vivid spring mountain scene.

Wang Anshi’s lines:
“Willow leaves, cicadas calling, green shade; lotus flowers, sunset glow red; thirty-six ponds of spring water; white-haired man thinking of Jiangnan.”

These are considered exemplary six-character poems, praised by Su Shi and Huang Tingjian.

Section 2: Formal Aesthetics of Liejin

1. Psychological Basis

The psychological basis of Liejin is “association,” including similarity, contiguity, and contrast associations.

“People rely on experience and knowledge to generate associations. From one small detail, one can infer the whole picture; seeing a tree leads to thinking of a forest. Therefore, through certain organization, several words reflecting parts or fragments can be arranged to evoke various associations, thereby expressing complex emotions and describing complex things or processes.”

From a grammatical perspective, Liejin places nouns or noun phrases together without subjects, predicates, or function words, resulting in a semantic “disconnection,” meaning a lack of logical linking mechanisms between noun images.

As language theory states:
“Words are connected both to things and to surrounding words through syntax… If syntactic force is weak, the connection between words is interrupted, and individual images become more vivid.”

Thus, Liejin allows readers to reconstruct meaning through imagination.

“Liejin consists of several nouns or attributive phrases arranged together, forming a special sentence structure. Through semantic association and supplementation by readers, a visual scene is formed, capable of narration, description, and emotional expression.”

According to scholar Huang Yongwu:
“By densely clustering many concrete words, imagery becomes layered. Because few connectives are used, meanings expand freely, making expression richer and more condensed.”

Liejin mainly uses “contiguous association,” meaning association based on spatial or temporal proximity, different from metaphor which relies on similarity association.

II. The Foundation of Formal Aesthetics

British poet T. S. Eliot (Thomas Stearns Eliot; 1888–1965), in the essay “Hamlet and His Problems”, states:

“In artistic form, the only way to express emotion is to find an ‘objective correlative’; in other words, to use a series of objects, a set of situations, or a sequence of events to represent a specific emotion. Once these external objects that act upon the senses appear, they will immediately evoke that emotion.”

Eliot’s intended meaning here is:

(1) Writers must rely on objective symbolic objects—including imagery, scenes, events, allusions, and quotations. These serve as material carriers for the author’s emotions, enabling a greater degree of freedom and creativity in artistic expression.

(2) Excellent poets are able to skillfully employ structured and regulated expressive means—the objective correlative—to give form and order to otherwise free and chaotic emotions, transforming them into flexible and multi-layered symbols. In this way, personal emotion is transformed into universal feeling, thereby expressing cultural critique, analysis of human nature, and philosophical reflection.

III. Formal Structure of “Liejin”

Liejin consists of the listing and combination of three or more nouns or noun phrases (noun groups). It originally belongs to a subtype of “phrase parallelism” derived from metrical poetry, but has recently been recognized by rhetoricians as an independent rhetorical device.

From the perspective of its origin, Liejin is essentially a product of regulated verse. Classical Chinese poetry is constrained by strict metrical rules, which inevitably require breaking conventional linguistic norms and adopting special expressive forms.

Liejin is a special linguistic combinational method that breaks through the constraints of ordinary grammar. It is a direct combination of pure nouns or noun phrases, usually without function words, and not bound by strict word-order rules of sentence components.

Each linguistic unit in a Liejin construction has an independent semantic function, while the overall structure forms a unified and complete visual scene with distinctive expressive effects.

If we compare it with another medium—film—Liejin resembles cinematic montage, including techniques such as superimposition, close-up, zoom in, and zoom out. It stimulates rich imagination and association in readers, creating a sense of “finite words, infinite meaning.”

For example, in Wang Wei’s Tang poem “Pastoral Joy (V):”
“Solitary smoke in a distant village below the mountain; a lone tree on the horizon plateau.
A gourd ladle in Yan Hui’s humble alley; Master Wuliu across the door.”

All four lines consist of concrete noun phrases (real imagery). There is no temporal sequence or subject-predicate hierarchy; instead, there is a spatial juxtaposition of images, as if a camera lens gradually presents the distant village and then moves toward the foreground.

“This kind of extraordinary combination highlights multi-layer spatial relations and plural semantic references prior to linguistic designation. The sublimation of this aesthetic depends on the flexibility of Chinese syntax and the indeterminacy of word class.”

In other words, visually oriented “scenic-language poetry” itself possesses the freedom to transcend grammatical and causal-logical constraints, performing a visual unfolding through associative imagination.

IV. Forms of Expression of Liejin

Regarding the expressive forms of Liejin:

Chinese scholar Cheng Weijun classifies it into three types: “ordinary type,” “parallel type,” and “correspondence type.”
Lu Jiasiang further classifies it into “foil type,” “continuous speech type,” and “refined type.”

This study reclassifies it into three categories to fit modern free verse:
(1) logical arrangement type
(2) homogeneous combination type
(3) front–back correspondence type

1. Logical Arrangement Type

Noun phrases are arranged according to a certain logical order (cause-effect, condition, or time). Formally, this resembles a series of parallel lines, like successive close-up shots.

Zhang Guozhi, “Paper Craftsman”

“Nothing more than
a lump of clay, a cut of satin paper,
a length of bamboo rattan, a brush of color.
Nothing more than
a chain of illusory life.”

“Clay,” “satin paper,” “bamboo rattan,” and “color brush” are materials used by the craftsman. The poet arranges them roughly according to usage sequence; thus it belongs to the logical arrangement type.

Xiang Yang, “The Text of the Dragon and Its Four Variations”

“With scales, with horns, with whiskers
from thunder, from clouds, from rain
to heaven, to sea, to earth
one lineage continues
endlessly extending
there is legend
there is no transmitter
fortunately it is not
an endangered species”

The poet sequentially presents the dragon’s appearance (scales, horns, whiskers), abilities (thunder, clouds, rain), and spatial existence (heaven, sea, earth), arranged in layered progression—thus also logical arrangement type.

Xue Li, “Widowhood”

“Dark room, magic mirror, waiting for midnight
carving a fresh breast
searching for red incantations
salt, feathers, matchsticks
astrology, magic, tarot cards
candle flame half-asleep”

This poem describes a young widow immersed in grief, seeking spiritual consolation through astrology and divination practices. The phrases are arranged from materials to symbolic names in sequence.

Although these examples are not purely classical “Liejin,” they are analyzed as such due to structural similarity.

2. Homogeneous Combination Type

Words of similar nature or loosely related meanings are randomly listed together, expressing an unordered flow of thought. This resembles a single camera revealing a chaotic scene.

Bai Ling, “Border Song: On the Silk Road”

“Oases at both ends, yesterday and today
at two distant extremes
ten thousand footprints cannot fill it
camels, horses, travelers
merchants, pilgrims, martial practitioners
Zhang Qian, Xuanzang, Faxian
even jeep tire tracks cannot fill it”

“Camels, horses, travelers”; “merchants, pilgrims, martial practitioners”; “Zhang Qian, Xuanzang, Faxian”—three noun groups (nine descriptive noun-like elements) are arranged together. They describe people and events along the Silk Road. Only the third group follows chronological order; the others are random.

Hou Jiliang, “Plot”

“If in a foreign land one can only alone
recall all of this today
on a round glass table
Long Life cigarette, lighter, water stains
piano, Western songs, poetry and love
or, absence of love
how to speak, or regret”

The imagery is divided into three groups:
“cigarette, lighter, water stains”;
“piano, Western songs, poetry”;
“love, absence of love.”

These groups are loosely related internally but not logically structured across groups. Therefore, it is closer to “iteration/juxtaposition” rather than strict Liejin.

3. Front–Back Correspondence Type

Phrases form a mutually corresponding structure between opening and closing parts.

Hong Yue, “Frozen”

“So afraid of the same scenery, the same street,
the same crowd, the same fire,
the same delayed train, the same phone call,
the same coin toss deciding the same short journey.”

The repeated phrase “the same” separates a series of nouns: scenery, street, crowd, train, phone, coin, journey. The sequence implies a narrative of travel. The final phrase “short journey” functions as closure, forming structural correspondence.

Sha Bao, “He Says Independence”

“He says: Huangpu River beach, money building independence
in Diaoyutai guesthouse, he says
sleeping one night without wife or escorts is independence
he says independence is traveling, wandering, watching TV
brewing tea, mixing wine without labels
he says, only wanting to abandon everything, independence”

This poem uses a chain of phrases to define “independence”: travel, wandering, watching TV, brewing tea, mixing drinks, unlabeledness, abandonment. The final phrase summarizes all preceding images, forming a coherent circular structure.

Although many phrases are not strictly nouns, the semantic linkage still forms a structured progression, making it a borderline case between free parallelism and Liejin.

Conclusion

The conditions for “Liejin” are stricter than parallelism and antithesis. Naturally, it is also more difficult to compose. However, since it is primarily based on “concrete language” (scenic language), it is not impossible to achieve.

Ancient poets were able to produce excellent Liejin works. Contemporary poets, living in an era of information explosion and broader experience, should in principle be even more capable of creating such works.