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Prompt: Analyze Do Phu's Autumn Inspiration to Perceive the Scenery and Sentiment of the Work
Sample Essay Analyzing Do Phu's Autumn Inspiration to Grasp the Scenery and Sentiment of the Work
Student's Response
Autumn Inspiration (Poem 1) by Đỗ Phủ is an exemplary, deeply profound, subtle, and sophisticated poem. In the poem, emotion and scenery, poetry and painting, motion and stillness intertwine, making it sometimes difficult to distinguish.
The poem can be tentatively divided into two parts, with the first four lines portraying the Autumn Scene and the latter four lines delving into the Poet's Heart. This division method fits formal logistics but doesn't deeply penetrate the dialectical relationship between the two parts of the poem. We know that ancient poetry, particularly Tang poetry, emphasizes the unity of human and the universe ('Heaven and man are one'). The 'I' (small self) is just a part of the 'we' of the universe (big self). Therefore, ancient poets often express the 'heart' through depicting the 'scene'. Even the first four lines, through strokes about the scenery, reveal the poet's emotional perspective. However, the scenery here seems to be depicted with somewhat clearer, more 'objective' strokes compared to the latter four lines. The poem specifies the time: autumn; and location: Vu Son, Vu Giap (belonging to the upper stream of the Yangtze River, in the Quy Chau region of Thuc Xuyen province). The scenery here is somewhat individualized with majestic, unique colors: treacherous mountains, foamy waves in the sky, clouds flowing on the ground. The scenery gradually appears like in a hastily played film. Binoculars spurt from the pine forest with white dew, to the scene of Vu mountain and accompanying fog, gradually to the waves foaming on the sky amidst the river, then stopping at the foggy clouds on the ground where the pass is located. The four lines also remind us of watercolor paintings with skillful strokes. The scenery appears in its 'spirit', its 'soul'. But behind that painting hides so many emotions. These emotions are first and foremost expressed in the choice of scenery.
The subsequent landscape sketches seem to accentuate the desolate, melancholic, and sorrowful aspects of the poet's soul. Although the scenery here also has a majestic aspect, it cannot overshadow the sadness, desolation, and inability to dispel the sadness, which flows from the mountains to the forests.
The following two lines juxtapose in meaning and language, creating a contrasting scene in the tableau 'The vast river valley accompanies the sky's courage - Above, the wind and clouds continue to collide' (The sky's back is turbulent, the river's heart is calm - The ground, clouds gather at the distant pass), giving us contrasting impressions: The scene is both fierce and majestic, yet also oppressive, surrounded and unable to escape. It is indeed a 'heartfelt scene' in the eyes of someone far from home, longing for home, heavily burdened with sorrow, and at the same time restless, troubled, and uneasy when looking back at home and observing worldly affairs. Kim Thanh Than was right when he said: 'looking up at the river only sees towering waves, but staring up at the pass, only sees misty clouds near the ground. Truly painful, sorrowful, it makes people utterly despondent.'
The subsequent four lines see the author further developing his emotions. Here, emotions are more direct, more specific, yet still profound, and subtle. Rational perception has abstracted concrete objects. The author mentions chrysanthemums, mentions the boat, but they are the 'heart' or the 'scene', sincerely distinguishing. 'Pine and chrysanthemum open twice for the tears of the past' (The chrysanthemum blooms twice: the tears of the past) and 'The lonely boat reluctantly ties the heart to the garden' (The lonely boat is tightly bound to the longing heart for the garden), here the words are few but the meaning is much, it is unclear whether it is the chrysanthemum shedding tears or the poet shedding tears by the chrysanthemum, it is unclear whether the boat ties or the boat ties the hearts of people. Ho Si Hiep believes that these lines can be understood in two ways: 'The chrysanthemum has bloomed twice and has made the old tears flow twice' or it can be understood as 'Seeing the chrysanthemum bloom as if the chrysanthemum has shed tears.' Whichever way you understand, it can be seen that here the 'wings' have blurred into the 'heart', have 'merged' into the 'heart'. The author has unified: emotion and scenery, present, and past (current tears are also past tears), objects and people (specific thread and heart string). Comparing with the poet's situation, it can be understood that Do Phu has understood since leaving the city to Quy Chau has been two years, experiencing two autumns. The poet's 'old tears' did not just 'pour' out once but many times. And as someone commented in the poem, the old man Thiếu Lăng has aged the harsh place, with a sense of pre-lachrymal flowers...
The unique concluding two lines of this poem open up many meanings. In Tang poetry, the two concluding lines often express feelings directly, but here the author directs it towards the objective scene outside. But where the scene outside is 'calm' in the beginning, it is 'turbulent' here. The scene is livelier in the 'busy' atmosphere to tailor winter clothes - The sound of pounding cloth resounds towards the evening on the Bạch Đế wall. The rhythm of the poem seems faster, more urgent. However, that is only the external scene, the poet's heart may not necessarily have changed. Because the poet's perspective is still the view in the twilight's melancholy light. The sound of pounding cloth in the afternoon on the Bạch Đế wall (The Bạch Đế wall resounds with the sound of pounding cloth) is easy to evoke sad thoughts. It seems to blend into the 'sad' music of the sound of pounding cloth in the moonlit night of the chinh phụ woman remembering her husband on Thiên island by Lí Bạch (The dress in the moonlit night reflects the moonlight), or the sound of pounding cloth of the woman in autumn in the poem Bạch Cư Dị (Autumn arrives, remembering husband pounding silk, the wind moon combs many millstones). That sound of pounding cloth is signaling the approach of winter, a winter with a (lack of food, lack of clothing, no home, staying on foreign land, and the heart is always heavy with worries and longing.
Thus, against the backdrop of autumn scenery with autumn forests, autumn atmosphere, autumn flowers, autumn sounds, the poet has merged into it the sentiment of the nostalgic subject, a sentiment imbued with sadness, melancholy, sorrow, and deep concern about the heavy burden of rural life and the subtle worries about worldly affairs..
