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28. The Affective Air and the Literary Bones
- Hong Kong University Press, HKU
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The Affective Air and the Literary Bones Among the six principles of the Shijingl feng comes first. This is because feng, the "affective air" (the wind, the civilizing influence, etc.) of any specimen of literature is located at the source of the process of education and is a voucher of the breath-and-force (qi) that feeds and conveys the writer's conscious experience (zhi). When sorrow comes and you must give expression to the emotion (qing), you begin with the affective air; but as you work and rework your music and layout the elements of language, there is no more pressing consideration than the boney structure (gu) of the piece of writing. Language depends for sustenance upon this "bone" as the human anatomy is supported by the skeleton; and emotion holds promise ofthe affective air as the freshly frame has breath in it. The literary bones are constituted when the language is arranged in an upright manner; and the affective air is pure when the writer's spirit is noble and free. Where the affective air and the literary bones are limp and fail to fly, your writing can have no sheen, its music can have no energy, however you decorate it with rhetorical munificence. This is why when you link up your thoughts and tailor your literary artefact you must endeavour to fill yourself with the guardian force; it is only when you are thus fortified that your writing will shine with untarnished brilliance. The uses of air and bone in literature may perhaps be likened to the manipulation oftheir wings by birds in flight. Writers who have mastered the bones always analyse their language with precision; those who understand the air deeply inevitably present their emotions On the six principles of the Shying, see Chapter 6, note 3. 108 I The Book ofLiterary Design in sharp focus. The effect of the presence of the affective air and the bones is this: that the words will be beaten finn and seem unalterable, that the music will be crystallized and unimpeded. On the contrary the evidence of the absence of the bones is disorganization, the use of fat phrases with meagre meaning; and that ofthe air is listlessness, the inability to round up loose thoughts. When Pan Xu wrote the complimentary piece addressed to Cao Cao he aspired to echo the classics and he silenced his peers. This was because he was above average in the bones - and the marrows. When Sima Xiangru launched his description of life in fairyland he won the reputation of being able to send his reader to seventh heaven and came to be widely regarded as a literary master. This was because his affective air was powerful. He who perceives the mysteries of such matters will himself be able to write; he who is denied such stock in trade should spare himselfthe onuses of composition. Cao Pi was right in arguing that "in literature what matters is the breathand -force (qi)", that this breath-and-force is either pure or muddled as given in the individual, and cannot be made pure or muddled by effort." That is why he thought Kong Rong was "noble and rare in the breath-and-force that was given in him as an individual," that Xu Gan "occasionally showed signs ofthe breathand -force of Qi," that Liu Zheng "had the superior breath-and force, the air of superiority". Liu Zheng himself also said, "Kong Rong is truly distinguished, quite out of the the ordinary; there is personality in his writing, of a kind that cannot be surpassed." In these observations both Cao Pi and Kong Rong attached great importance to the breath-and-force. The'pheasant is colourfully plumaged, but all it can do is to strut a little. This is because it is fleshy and has little energy. The eagle looks drab, but soars into the sky. This is because it has strong bones and a fiery spirit. The difference in promise and perfonnance between writers is not unlike that between these fowls. Those that possess the affective air and literary bones but are deficient in rhetorical colour flock together like predatory eagles in the forest of brushes, while those who are blessed with rhetorical colour but fall short of the air and bones steal like so many pheasants into poesy's game park. Whether in art-prose or in utility-prose the noble phoenix must know not only how to don weeds of glory but also how...