Crafting an Analysis of 'Self-Composed Verse' by Ho Xuan Huong

Composing 'Self-Composed Verse' (Ho Xuan Huong), sample 1

Question 1:
Situation:
- Time: Late night.
- Space: Quiet, serene (art of using stillness to depict motion).
Easily evokes emotions.
Human heart: desolate, from 'Desolate' linked with 'fair face' (antithesis).
⟹ Sorrowful, despondent.
- Contrasting imagery: Fair face (small - limited) - endless water and land (vast - infinite).
Isolation, solitude.
⟹ The author feels very lonely, melancholic, and desolate. Simultaneously mocking yet bitter and poignant.

Question 2:
Nature imagery in lines 5 and 6 contributes to portraying the poet's emotions, attitudes towards the fate of the woman.
+ Inversion technique ⟹ carrying the frustration of both humans and the poet himself.
+ verbs 'slant', 'pierce' combined with adjectives depict the poet's obstinacy, stubbornness.
+ Imagery: moss (soft, weak), rocks (short, small) unwilling to accept fate, striving against all odds (earth, clouds) to prove themselves.
⟹ Creates vivid descriptions, full of vitality in the most tragic situations to best express the poet's feelings: striving upward.

Question 3:
The final two lines represent the author's feelings about fate, about love.
+ Line 1: Once departed, never to return. The return of spring equates to the departure of youth.
+ Line 2: An incomplete love affair of the woman or Ho Xuan Huong also implies the plight of women who must endure the fate of being small concubines, having to compete, share their love with other women.
⟹ The author is both sad and defiant about fate, although striving upward, still falls into tragedy.

Question 4:
- Tragedy:
+ through contrasting images: fair face - water and land; Late night - desolate fair face
+ details: bringing back drunkenness to sobriety, the shadow of the moon is not yet complete, spring comes and goes, fragments of shared love.
⟹ The author is sad, frustrated by the harsh fate, by the need to share sacred love.
- Aspiration through 2 theses.
⟹ Despite loneliness, despite circumstances not being good, the author still yearns to live, to be happy.
Practice:
- Similarities: Use of Nom poetry, borrow sentiments about time to express the emotions. Both poems are self-disclosures, self-expression of Ho Xuan Huong.
- Differences:
+ Part I: resentment, profound sorrow because destiny came without fate. Nevertheless, still maintains faith and pride to assert 'this body has not yet suffered anything'.
+ Part II: weariness, bitterness, desolation because there is and there isn't. Ending the poem, however bold Ho Xuan Huong is unable to conceal extreme weariness.
 

Composing 'Self-Composed Verse' (Ho Xuan Huong), sample 2:

 I. About the author, the work

- Ho Xuan Huong, from Quynh Doi village, Quynh Luu district, Nghe An province, mainly lived in the capital Thang Long. She traveled extensively, was close to many literati such as Nguyen Du. Ho Xuan Huong's life, love was full of ups and downs, twists and turns.
- Ho Xuan Huong is a famous poet who wrote about women, wrote about sarcastic themes with deep folk literature. Prominent in Ho Xuan Huong's Nom poetry is the sympathetic voice for women, affirming and elevating their beauty, their aspirations.
- 'Self-Composed Verse' (Part II) is included in the 'Self-Composed Verse' cluster consisting of three poems by Ho Xuan Huong.

II. Guidelines for Composition

Question 1 (page 19 of Literature Textbook 11 Volume 1):
- Time: Late night.
- Space: vast, overwhelming emptiness.
- Human heart: desolate, from 'desolate' linked with 'fair face' along with inversion technique evoking a sense of sorrow, despondency.
- Contrasting imagery: Fair face (small - limited) - water and land (large - infinite)
→ Emphasizes the feeling of loneliness, solitude.
- The phrase 'drunk and sober again' suggests a cycle of entanglement, the more sad, the more feeling the pain of fate.
- The imagery of 'The moon's shadow is not yet complete' is a metaphor containing two tragedies: the moon is about to wane (waxing shadow) but still incomplete. It is analogous to a woman.
=> The external scene is also the internal scene: The Moon = Person (The moon is about to wane but still incomplete – The years drift away but happiness is not complete).

Question 2 (page 19 of Literature Textbook 11 Volume 1):
Natural imagery in lines 5 and 6 express human frustration:
Opposite pairs: slanting crosswise - piercing through; moss in clumps - a few rocks; ground - foot of the clouds...
- Inversion technique combined with strong verbs (slant, pierce) express the stubbornness, defiance of Ho Xuan Huong.
- Moss (a soft, weak creature), rocks (short, small) unwilling to accept fate, trying every means to rise above obstacles (ground, foot of the clouds) to assert themselves→ The rocks, moss seem resentful, seem to resist fiercely against nature.
=> Two lines affirm strong, determined vitality, wanting to break through barriers to seek happiness.

Question 3 (page 19 of Literature Textbook 11 Volume 1):
The concluding two lines represent the melancholic, sad mood of the sentimental character:
- The phrase 'spring comes and goes': Natural spring passes and will return but the springtime of people will not. The first 'again' means one more time, while the second 'again' means returning. Spring returns but youth does not. The spring returns but youth has passed.
- The advanced artistry of 'fragments of love – share – a little' emphasizes the gradual diminishment, the scarcity, the sharing in the happiness of Hồ Xuân Hương's life making the irony even more poignant: the love fragments were already small, already insignificant, already incomplete so sharing them away (a little) makes it even more pitiful, more pathetic.

Question 4 (page 19 of Literature Textbook 11 Volume 1):
The poem both expresses tragedy and shows Ho Xuan Huong's desire for happiness. The tragedy in the poem is the tragedy of youth, of fate. Spring comes and goes, the time of nature, of heaven and earth keeps revolving but the youth of people keeps passing away without returning. In that situation, the carelessness, the clumsiness of love only increases the sadness. Falling into that situation, faced with the irony of fate, but Ho Xuan Huong still always yearns for happiness, stands up to resist the harshness of fate.

 III. Practice

Question 1 (page 20 of Literature Textbook 11 Volume 1): Read Self-Composed Verse ...

Comparing the poems 'Self-Composed Verse I' and 'Self-Composed Verse II' by the author Ho Xuan Huong
1. Similarities:
- Utilization of Nom poetry, showcasing the author's talent in employing eloquent language, particularly notable in the adept use of literary devices: inversion, antithesis, advancement...
- Expressing emotions: sorrow, poignancy, resentment towards the harshness of fate.

2. Differences:
- The emotion in 'Self-Composed Verse I' reflects the poet's anguish before the harshness of fate, numerous losses, facing life's adversities, while simultaneously portraying self-assertion, challenging fate.
- Whereas in 'Self-Composed Verse II,' it also demonstrates the myriad tragedies of fate, striving upwards but ultimately unable to escape the tragedy. Thus, the tragedy seems magnified, more resentful.
 

Composing 'Self-Composed Verse' (Ho Xuan Huong), Short 3

Question 1: