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Chapter Six: Circular Repetition — Palindrome Section One: Palindrome I. Definition and Function of Palindrome “Palindrome” is a unique “linguistic form” particular to Chinese characters, established upon the linguistic condition of “one character, one sound.” “Chinese monosyllables basically all possess meaning; the combination of morphemes is highly flexible and lacks inflectional morphology. This constitutes the linguistic foundation for circular repetition.”¹ Because Chinese possesses the characteristics of being “monosyllabic” and “isolating,” it is suitable, under conditions of fixed character count and line count, for the further pursuit of regulated tonal patterns, rhyme schemes, antithesis, and other forms of phonological symmetry. Thus there developed special forms such as “palindrome,” “parallelism,” and “embedding” (cross embedding and head-tail embedding). “Two lines or groups of lines contain partially identical vocabulary, but with roughly opposite word order,”² and the rhetorical device that “constructs cyclical repetition through expressions that may be read both forward and backward”³ is called “palindrome.” A “palindrome poem,” as the name suggests, is poetry that may be repeatedly reversed and reread, producing poetic imagery and conforming to poetic metrics whether read forward or backward, while remaining fully coherent in either direction. It is a kind of literary game through which Chinese literati displayed their verbal talent. Though it may not possess major artistic value, it nevertheless remains a unique flower within Chinese poetry. “Because a palindrome may be read both in normal order and in reverse order, this is the basic structural requirement. Therefore, when composing palindrome works, one must inevitably consider issues such as character count and literary form. Consequently, it is comparatively easier to compose short forms such as poetry, ci lyrics, and couplets.”⁴ In practical usage, palindromes appear most commonly in couplets and short lyric poetry. This is because palindrome deliberately pursues cyclical reversal of word order. A sentence or passage must be capable of both forward and reverse reading while remaining smooth and meaningful in both directions. To achieve this, authors often exhaust immense effort and ingenuity. Hence, palindrome is unsuitable for long poetic compositions or prose with irregular sentence and line lengths. After poetic lines undergo palindrome reversal, word order changes, and “parts of speech” often change accordingly, resulting in phenomena of “conversion” or “transformation.” In modern poetry, this linguistic form resembling a “word game” has become far less important than before. Although modern poets have experimented with avant-garde forms, such as the “visual poetry” of modernist poets Lin Hengtai and Zhan Bing in the 1950s, and Xia Yu’s “Matching Exercise” in the postmodern poetry of the 1980s, parodying elementary school language test formats, modern poets appear relatively uninterested in the ancient form of palindrome poetry. This is likely related to the fact that palindrome poetry is constrained by strict formal and grammatical requirements involving character count, sentence count, word order, and parts of speech, making it extremely difficult to compose. II. Historical Origins of Palindrome Because palindrome repeatedly employs words within lines while reversing their order, it creates a cyclical and recursive aesthetic charm. The term “palindrome poetry” first appeared in Liu Xie’s The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons, in the chapter “On Poetry”: “The rise of palindrome began with Daoyuan.” However, whether “Daoyuan” refers to a work title or a person remains uncertain. If it refers to the creator of the earliest palindrome, then due to the absence of surviving works, its true nature cannot be examined. The earliest credible example of palindrome poetry is generally considered to be the “Poem in the Tray” composed by the wife of Su Boyu during the Jin dynasty. During the Former Qin period of the Northern Dynasties, Su Hui, wife of Dou Tao, wove with colored silk threads a work entitled Xuanji Diagram Poem. The poem consisted of 841 characters arranged in a square grid, twenty-nine characters vertically and horizontally. Influenced by the Xuanji Diagram Poem, later generations of literati eagerly imitated this style, producing many works whose poetic meaning remained vivid whether read forward or backward. For example, Song dynasty statesman Wang Anshi composed five-character palindrome poems. One of them, “Green Weeds,” reads: “Green weeds level the vast wild fields, Read backward, it becomes: “Bitter chants burden the idle body, Su Shi also composed a palindrome in rhyme: “Spring fills the loom weaving palindrome brocade, This poem describes a woman weaving palindrome brocade to send to her frontier-guarding lover. Whether read forward or backward, the sorrowful and lingering emotions within her heart remain unchanged: “Empty courtyard, evening sun, low willow threads; This demonstrates Su Shi’s extraordinary poetic skill. Readers may try reading it backward to experience the deep grief of the waiting wife. There are also forms related to palindrome poetry, including “circular poetry,” “reversed-sentence poetry,” “chain-link poetry,” and “repetitive-form poetry.” (1) Circular Poetry Qing dynasty writer Zhu Xingsun composed a lyric to the tune “Yu Meiren.” The lyric itself is a palindrome and may also be repunctuated into a seven-character regulated verse, which can likewise be read backward. It reads: “Lonely tower leaning into dreams beyond cold lamps, Read backward, it still follows the “Yu Meiren” tune, though the rhyme changes: “Crimson curtains reflect the moon, dusk drawing near, Repunctuated, it may also become a seven-character regulated poem: “Lonely tower leans into dreams beyond cold lamps, Read backward, it becomes: “Crimson curtains reflect moonlight near dusk, (2) Reversed-Sentence Poetry In this type, each line may itself be read backward. For example, an anonymous poem: “Everywhere flying flowers, flowers flying everywhere; Another example is Su Shi’s “Bodhisattva Barbarian: Four Seasons Lyrics”: “Green rings slant through clouds hanging by ears, (3) Chain-Link Poetry The characteristic of chain-link poetry is that each line connects to the next through repeated ending and beginning words, creating vivid and orderly beauty. For example, Shen Jiuzhi of the Southern Dynasties, in “Imitation of Green Grass by the Riverbank,” describing the complicated emotions of an abandoned wife longing for her husband: “Silent upon the bed I sit, Another example is “Admiring Flowers”: “Quietly thinking of her, long delayed return; According to tradition, this poem was written by Song dynasty poet Qin Guan for his wife Su Xiaomei. Su Xiaomei and her elder brother Su Dongpo were boating upon West Lake when someone delivered a letter from Qin Guan. Opening it, they discovered an ingeniously composed chain-link poem. Su Xiaomei smiled immediately upon understanding its secret meaning and was deeply moved by her husband’s affection. Gazing upon the boundless beauty of West Lake, she imitated Qin Guan’s style and composed a circular poem in return: “Lotus-picking people at the green willow ford, Su Dongpo, delighted by his sister’s exceptional talent, also improvised a poem: “Returning from admiring flowers, horses fly swiftly; The siblings also sent their poems back to Qin Guan. (4) Repetitive-Form Poetry Repetitive-form poetry is read by sequentially retreating one character at a time. For example, Song dynasty Qian Weizhi’s “Spring Day Ascending Great Compassion Pavilion”: “Blue sky overlooks distant pavilion, From this, twenty five-character quatrains may be generated, making it highly ingenious. Palindrome, as a rhetorical form possessing characteristics of “playful literary design,” is strictly constrained by line count, character count, and formal symmetry, making its technical difficulty extremely high. Entering the era of “new literature,” it seems to have been largely neglected by authors. Although palindrome provides “multiple possible readings and multiple combinations of meaning,” offering possibilities for manipulating monosyllabic Chinese characters and “meaningful experiments in word order,” its content remains constrained by form. Ultimately, it cannot escape the nature of a “word game.” Thus it has been criticized as “palindrome is indeed difficult, but not particularly valuable.”⁵ Section Two: Formal Aesthetics of Palindrome “Repetition, symmetry, and closure” form the aesthetic basis of palindrome. The arrangement pattern of palindrome is “ABC–CBA.” Through reversal and recurrence, a cyclical structure is formed. “Repetition” is the strategy through which palindrome is generated; “symmetry” is the aesthetic form produced after its formation; and “closure” is the resulting state of meaning. “A palindrome consists of two or more sentences in which the ending of the previous line becomes the beginning of the next line, and the latter line is the reversed form of the former. This cyclical linkage not only reflects dialectical relationships between things on the semantic level, but also creates a cyclical sonic beauty in the chain of sounds.”⁶ Palindrome poetry presents a relationship of “oppositional reversal” in meaning, while in rhythm it produces a “reverse-direction resonance effect.” These constitute its two major characteristics. Section Three: Formal Structure of Palindrome The formal structure of palindrome is that “it may be read both in forward sequence and in reverse sequence.” The form of palindrome is a repetitive structure possessing the following formal characteristics: (1) Formally, it manifests as a repetitive structure in which vocabulary remains the same while word order is reversed. (2) After poetry undergoes palindrome reversal, word order changes, and parts of speech often change accordingly, resulting in phenomena of “conversion” or “transformation.” (3) The vocabulary forming the palindrome must remain identical, following a circular trajectory of continuation. Not only does the ending of the previous line connect repeatedly with the beginning of the next line, but the next line also returns to the opening of the previous line, repeatedly using the same vocabulary and thereby creating a beauty of cyclical repetition. Section 4: Forms of Expression of Palindrome There are many forms of palindrome poetry commonly seen, such as “single-line palindrome,” “couplet palindrome,” “whole-piece palindrome,” “complete-body palindrome,” and “cyclic palindrome.”
This refers to completing the process of reversal within a single sentence, where the first half and the second half of each sentence mutually form a palindrome. For example: “Mist locks the mountain peak, the mountain peak locks the mist; sky joins the water’s edge, the water’s edge joins the sky.” (Couplet at Gulangyu Island, Xiamen). Within the same sentence, forward reading and backward reading are completely identical, fully expressing the unique scenery of Gulangyu Island. “The mountains and mist interlock, the water and sky share one color,” truly overflowing with delightful interest. Jiong Hong “Water Ripples”7 Suddenly I think of you, but not the you of this moment “Not within the most beautiful dream, within the dreamiest beauty” is a “single-line palindrome.” After reversing the word order, “beauty” and “dream” undergo an interchange of grammatical categories between the preceding and following phrases.
This refers to the next line being the reverse reading of the previous line, as in this Song dynasty lyric: “South of the mountain pass the river is shallow and the red plums small; the small plums are red and shallow by the southern mountain river. Peering at me beside the sparse fence, the sparse fence peers toward me. The old man walks and soon arrives; arriving soon, the traveler is old. Parting cherishes the withered branch; the branch withers cherishing parting.” (Song Dynasty, Su Shi, “Bodhisattva Barbarian”). The entire lyric follows the tonal pattern requirements of “Bodhisattva Barbarian,” with every two lines forming a set of palindrome. Whether read forward or backward, the tonal structure remains identical. However, because it is constrained by strict formal restrictions, the artistic conception is difficult to expand, and thoughts and emotions cannot be fully expressed. Qin Zihao “The Existence of the Bottle”8 A very round belly “Turning its back to the abyss while facing the void” and “Turning its back to the void while approaching the abyss” form a set of “couplet palindrome (cyclic palindrome).” The form is orderly and balanced. Through such treatment, the two opposing images of emptiness and abyss not only “mutually refer to one another,” but have already “merged emptiness and reality into one.” Gao Dapeng “As I Lay Dying” People have many ways to waste time We often hear, “Make good use of time and become the master of time.” Yet many people still squander their years. “People have many ways to waste time / But time has even more ways to waste people” — this pair of couplet palindromes appears especially sharp and admonitory, deeply provoking reflection. In the 1970s there was a popular song lyric, “You and Me Entwined,” familiar to many people born in the 1950s and 1960s. One line reads, “Within your mud there is me; within my mud there is you,” employing precisely a “couplet palindrome.” This lyric originated from Yuan dynasty painter Zhao Mengfu and his wife Guan Daosheng. Lady Guan composed a short song refuting her husband’s idea of taking a concubine.
This refers to an entire poem or lyric completing one cycle of reversal, namely that the latter half is the reversal of the first half. For example: “Softly softly the clear wind shakes the bamboo, slowly slowly the warm sun opens flowers. Deep within fragrant curtains lies the drunken household, charming words and delicate sounds graceful and lovely. Graceful and lovely the delicate sounds and charming words, the household lies drunken within deep curtains. Fragrant flowers bloom beneath the slowly warming sun, bamboo shaken by softly softly the clear wind.” (Song Dynasty, Huang Tingjian, “Moon over the West River: Using Huihong’s Rhyme”). The latter half of the entire piece is the reverse reading of the former half. The two halves resemble mirrored images reflecting one another, displaying the aesthetic beauty of balance, symmetry, and harmony. In modern poetry, such works are rarely seen, such as overseas Chinese poet Lu Jianchun’s “Thinking of Someone on a Winter Night”9: The moonlight of frosted bones walks deeper and deeper You are in the homeland where snowflakes fall A star flickering between brightness and extinction Walking toward the homeland of stars The latter two sections of the entire poem are the reverse narration of the first two sections, presenting a cyclical form of “A–B; reversed B–reversed A” on the sentence level. Like reflections of flowers in a mirror or the moon upon water, it similarly displays the aesthetic beauty of balance, symmetry, and harmony.
This refers to a poem that, when read from the final character back to the first character, forms another entirely new poem. For example, this Song dynasty poem: “Moored geese cry beside the deep islet, gathered sunset clouds descend upon the evening stream. Watchmen’s clappers follow the wind as formations close, towers reflect the moon and lower their strings. Vast vast sandbank sails turn, faint faint shore fires burn. Dangerous ravines connect narrow roads, winding ditches encircle level fields.” (Song Dynasty, Wang Anshi, “Moored Geese”). This is a scenic and descriptive “complete-body palindrome” poem composed according to the formal requirements of regulated five-character verse. The poem describes many details of scenery; the language is fluent, the artistic conception profound, and the structure rigorous. Whether read forward or backward, it remains richly poetic. At the end of the Ming dynasty, the talented Zhejiang woman Wu Jiangxue wrote “Poems of Mountain and Water through the Four Seasons”: “Warblers sing by riverbank willows teasing the spring clear night moon bright, fragrant lotus upon emerald waters stirs cool wind long summer days, autumn river Chu geese lodge upon sandy islets shallow waters flow, red furnace glowing charcoal roasts cold winds resisting deep winter.” Each continuous sentence combines into a seven-character regulated verse poem, while separating them apart yields four different seven-character regulated verse poems.
This refers to first continuing sequentially to the end, then continuing from the end back to the beginning. Examples include “Poem on a Plate” by the wife of Su Boyu during the Jin dynasty, and “The Xuanji Diagram” by Su Hui at the end of the Western Jin dynasty. Section 5: The Difference Between Palindrome and Similar Figures of Speech
(1) Differences in Form Both anadiplosis and palindrome reuse identical words between the beginning of the next sentence and the ending of the previous sentence in order to reflect the interconnection of things, yet they still possess obvious differences. Palindrome is a rhetorical method that repeatedly explains through cyclical repetition of identical phrases. Formally, it is expressed through identical wording but reversed word order, symbolized as “ABC, CBA.” The structural form of anadiplosis, however, is that the ending word of the previous sentence becomes the opening word of the next sentence, symbolized as “ABC, CDE.” (2) Differences in Structure and Semantics The Cyclic Nature of Palindrome and the Progressive Nature of Anadiplosis “Anadiplosis reflects interrelationships among things possessing a ‘progressive nature,’ advancing forward link by link in the form of ‘A–B, B–C’; palindrome reflects interrelationships among things possessing a ‘cyclic nature,’ circulating repeatedly in the form of ‘A–B, B–A.’”10 Palindrome reflects mutually dependent relationships among things, and its linguistic form is arranged in reverse order according to the preceding text: A–B, B–A. Anadiplosis, however, reflects progressively interdependent relationships among things, and its linguistic form links upward and downward in sequential succession: A–B, B–C. The words constituting a palindrome are required to be identical, that is, connected along a circular trajectory. Not only are the ending words of the preceding sentence and the opening words of the following sentence repeatedly linked together, but the following sentence also reconnects to the opening words of the preceding sentence, repeating the same words and creating a kind of cyclical beauty and repetitive beauty. Anadiplosis only requires the connected words at the beginning and end to be identical; the remaining words need not be identical. That is, anadiplosis is “connected but not returned.” It lacks the cyclical repetition of the same word. The words linked between the beginning and ending in anadiplosis proceed along a straight-line trajectory. The closing word of the final sentence and the opening word of the first sentence do not repeat and echo one another. At the semantic level, the semantics of palindrome sentence patterns often present a dialectical relationship of “positive and negative opposition, mutually serving as cause and effect”; the semantics of anadiplosis sentence patterns, however, form a continuing relationship of “link upon link, upward progression and downward connection.”
Palindrome poetry and cyclic repetition poetry are two different rhetorical devices. Although both possess the characteristic of cyclical repetition and both utilize changes in word order to achieve rhetorical effects, (1) structurally, palindrome is a repetitive-reversal structure in which both forward reading and reverse reading can form coherent text, whereas cyclic repetition is a closed structure in which the beginning and end connect in a closed loop and cannot be read backward. (2) In terms of linguistic technique, under the premise of forward reading, cyclic repetition only changes the words positioned at the beginning and end of the preceding and following clauses; palindrome, however, does not require such changes. Its ingenious arrangement of words must gain recognition through reverse reading.11 “Classical Chinese was primarily composed of monosyllabic words, making it easy to form palindromes. In modern Chinese, palindromes are difficult to develop; cyclic repetition, especially the broad form of cyclic repetition, not only preserves the formal beauty of ancient palindromes, but can also vary flexibly.” Modern Chinese vocabulary is mostly disyllabic and trisyllabic, which indeed is unfavorable to the use of palindromes. After all, in palindrome, not only must the word order be reversed during backward reading, but the grammar also cannot contain contradictions, and the semantics must remain coherent. Therefore, in actual practice, the technical difficulty is indeed very high. It is no wonder that almost no modern poets are enthusiastic about this technique. Notes
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