The Poetics of Decadence: Chinese Poetry of the Southern Dynasties and Late Tang Periods (review)

This book addresses a relatively neglected aspect of Chinese literature—"decadent" (tuifei, literally "degenerate and ruined") poetry—neglected primarily because of a long-standing reluctance among traditional critics to legitimize such poems by taking them seriously. Decadence as a self-conscious movement is generally recognized as a collective mode that characterizes the ending, or the period following, any particularly brilliant period, as when the Age of Pericles in Greece was followed by the Hellenistic Age, or when the high point of the Roman Empire faded into the post-Augustan Age, beginning about A.D. 14. In more recent times, the fin de siècle mood of the late nineteenth century, and even of our own times at the end of the millennium, has made the phenomenon a living reality. A prominent characteristic of this mood is the loss of "timeless values," which are being replaced by chaotic and kaleidoscopic changes. At such times there seems to be a need to concentrate on what is new or unusual, with leanings toward the sensational, the sensual, and even the morbid and grotesque.

In China a mood resembling this kind of decadence developed among the northern émigré exiles of the Southern Dynasties—the Eastern Jin, Liu-Song, Qi, Liang, and Chen (between 317 and 589)—who had been traumatized by the loss of their northern homeland to barbarian invaders, and again in the late Tang, following the trauma of the An Lushan Rebellion (755-763). Traditional Chinese literary critics, deeply indoctrinated by the canonical prescriptions of the nature and purpose of poetry as the expression of sincere feelings and lofty intentions,¹ are naturally put off by the preference for decorative artifice over substance, and superficial detachment over serious commitment, that they find in these poets. Fusheng Wu's intention in this book is to challenge what he sees to be the imbalance of the traditional assessment, and to demonstrate how a more sympathetic understanding of decadent poetry actually "broadens the scope" of the Chinese poetic tradition. As a telling example of how even the most admired "pillar of the Tang canon," Du Fu (717-770), was occasionally influenced by the decadent poets of the Six Dynasties, he cites Du's well-loved poem, "Moonlight Night" ("Yueye" ), addressed to his wife in Fuzhou while he himself was being detained in Chang'an by An Lushan's rebels. With deeply moving conjugal affection, the poet longs to be reunited with her and their small children. The endearing terms by which he refers to her "fragrant mist" (xiangwu), "cloud hair" (yunhuan), and "jade arms" (yubi) are all drawn from the lexicon of the despised boudoir poets of the "Palace Style" (gongti).

In fact, the charge of indecency traditionally attached to parts of the classical canon itself, especially the love songs of the Book of Songs (Shi) and the shaman incantations of the Songs of Chu (Chuci), has cast its shadow over these works in much the same way, resulting in the allegorization of all the erotic passages, interpreting them as remonstrances of loyal devotion by a courtier to his lord, in much the same way that Biblical commentators in the West from earliest times also allegorized the Song of Songs.

In this book the author is not so much interested in defending the legitimacy of the decadent tradition as he is in demonstrating how it has enriched Chinese literature as a whole, and how unique individual differences distinguish each of the four decadent poets treated in the book from each other. To lump them together as a group of trivial and irresponsible playboys indulging in literary games while society around them was going to ruin, as traditional criticism has tended to do, would be to misunderstand their real contribution.

The four poets...