In 1981, Zhou Cezhong held a seminar on modern Chinese literature at the University of Chinese in Hong Kong. (Xu Liping/Photo)
Mr. Zhou Cezhong (1916-2007), who was respected by friends and friends at home and abroad as "Zhou Gong", had a legendary life. He graduated from the Central Military and Political University at an early age, worked in the attendant room, and in 1948 he was in North America and later received a doctorate in political science from the University of Michigan. Since 1965, he has been teaching in the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures at the University of Wisconsin, covering the fields of literature, history, philosophy, and red studies, and is known for his wide range of interests and profound knowledge. Although I am not a disciple of Mr. Zhou Cezhong, as a junior scholar, I have asked him many times for help and been taught by him. In 1993, I began translating Zhou Gong's masterpiece The Early History of the Chinese Word Shih, during which I came across some uncertain places and wrote to him for advice. He did not abandon stupidity and patiently gave me guidance. Over time, I also got used to being known as Zhou Gong.
Zhou Cezhong (pictured right) and He Wenhui. (Infographic/Figure)
Gadgets in pain
Zhou Gong is a professor, and in the minds of ordinary people, his identity is a scholar, and in my opinion, Zhou Gong is first and foremost a poet. From a young age, he was very interested in poetry and had a deep poetic habit. In 2006, his friend Professor Chen Zhi compiled and published "Zhou Ce Zhong's Old Poems", and more than a thousand rhymes by Zhou Pingsheng were included in this compilation. The appendix at the end of the book includes one of Zhou Gong's "Autobiography of abandoning the garden", entitled "Junior High School Drops: Leaving Home and Getting Involved in the Anti-Japanese Movement", which shows that he has developed a strong interest in poetry since his junior high school days. He was keen on reading poetry and talking about poetry, and he was also happy to "paste poems" ("copy an old poem from a book, copy out a word before or after the sentence, and let everyone guess an appropriate word"), poetry bells, and other games, and published poems in newspapers and periodicals such as Shanghai Student Literature and Art Series. The interest in poetry developed as a teenager lasted his life. As an adult, he became more interested in poetry, from couplets, bells, collections, and various old poetry genres, to new poems and new poetry collections, and he was willing to try them out and forget about them.
In the autumn of 1995, when I was visiting the Yenching Society at Harvard, I collected five poems by Li Yishan and sent them to Zhou Gong for advice. In addition to being quite positive, Zhou Gong also pointed out my practice and guided me. In his reply, he said that in his early years, he also collected Li Yishan's poems: "Thirty years ago, Mr. Xiao Gongquan sent his 1938 collection of Yishan poems, and I immediately collected a poem "Under the Grass" to answer. The letter reproduced the full text of the poem as follows:
The leaves of the yin insects under the grass are frosted, and the thorns of Ho Lao are injured.
Who is the lord of the West Garden Bishu now? The autumn night of the Jade Palace is long.
Forever reminiscing about the rivers and lakes to white hair, not hindering the fear is pure madness.
Although the heart of the heavens and the earth is broken, I do not believe that there is a broken intestine in the years.
According to Zhou, the poem was collected by madison, where he was at the University of Wisconsin, in the fall of 1965, exactly thirty years ago. He modestly called this poem "not a collection of work, only to relieve the ears of individuals", but I know that Zhou Gong integrates a seven laws, and the difficulty of collecting a seven laws is far greater than that of a set of seven absolutes, because the two pairs of the seven laws require duality, and the requirements for set sentences are higher. The Zhou Gongshou collection of seven laws in the two couplets is strictly ordered, "Forever remembering the rivers and lakes to return to white hair, not hindering the fear is pure madness" A combination especially impressed me. This collection of verses is now included in the Teaching of Qicao (1963-1972), see page 110 of the Zhou Ce Zhong Old Poems.
Zhou Gong's interest in collected sentence poems is not a whim, an occasional one, but a call for friends and whistles, often for fun. In the daily life of North Americans, every Christmas or New Year, they often send cards to each other to show congratulations. In Christmas or New Year greeting cards, lyrical sentences and friendly questions can probably be said to be the invention of Zhou Gong. At the end of 1960, when Zhou Gongshi was in Harvard, he collected Tan Si's same verses as the seven laws and six poems of "The Book of The Twilight of the Year", and copied and sent them to him. On Christmas Day 1962, he collected four poems from Lu Xun and sent them to overseas friends. On Christmas Day 1963, he collected Du Fu's poems to send Hong Ye, Yang Liansheng, Jiang Yi and other friendships. His very personal little book, "Continuing Liang Qichao's "Gadgets in Pain":On Couplets and Collected Sentences( Qiuzi Publishing House, 1964), was first drafted in 1960, finalized in 1963 at the Abandoned Garden in Boston, and printed and published in Hong Kong in 1964.
In 1923, Liang Qichao suffered many pains in his life: his wife was bedridden for half a year, and finally died of illness; his beloved son traveled far away and missed him endlessly; and the country was in constant civil war and chaotic. In addition to being opposite to his beloved daughter, Liang Qichao can only read words every day and collect words and sentences as couplets to soothe his pain. On December 3, he wrote a "Gadget in Pain" in the morning newspaper commemorative supplement, publishing 48 couplets of his tang and Song dynasties. Around 1960, Zhou Ce followed in Liang Qichao's footsteps, integrated more than 100 pairs of five generations of Song Zilian, and selected 71 pairs from them, which were entered into "Continuing Liang Qichao's "Gadgets in Pain"--On Couplets and Collection Sentences". Arguably, his highest interest in collecting sentences was in the 1960s.
History of the May Fourth Movement
Cheng Xi and Zhou Gong
Couplets and set sentences are the foundation or component of old poetry. Zhou Gong's old poetry creation was used to entertain the masses, and its "group" was particularly useful. He often sent his own works to friendship, singing to each other, and chinese scholars who were active in the Field of Sinology in North America, such as Xiao Gongquan, Hong Ye, Yang Lianshen, Jiang Yi and others mentioned above, interacted with him a lot. Not only do they understand the various forms of traditional Chinese poetry, but they are often good at it. For example, Mr. HongYe has a special love for jiju, and when he was detained by Rikou in Yanjing, he wanted to collect Duju to express his ambitions. These rhyming forms of the poetry association are an important way for Zhou Gong to communicate and dialogue with these fellow travelers, the so-called friends with literature and friends as assistants.
Cheng Xi (1919-1997) was one of his fellow friendly friends. Cheng Xi (程曦), courtesy name Zhongyan, was originally from Wen'an, Hebei Province, and studied under Wu Mi in his early years, and was quite valued. When Mr. Chen Yinke was teaching at Lingnan University, Wu Mi recommended Cheng Xi as Mr. Chen's assistant. Later, Cheng Xi taught at the University of Hong Kong, the University of Cambridge, the University of London, the University of Malaya, Iowa State University, and the University of Washington. Cheng Xi is a good ancient and erudite, and he is also familiar with literature and history, and is good at calligraphy and painting, which can be described as versatile. He is particularly proficient in the study of poetry and music, and has authored "Three Kinds of Lingchaoxuan Miscellaneous Dramas" and "Lingchaoxuan Poetry Collection". In 1971, Cheng Xi sent his collection of poems and songs to Zhou Gong, and after Zhou Gong read it, he praised the poems of "Wild Field Vines in the Spring, Waste Pheasant Idle Flowers to Kejiao", "Yin Cuishi outside the Jian Wai Peak, Cold Green Pine in the Haoyue Of Lingtou", "Wind and Smoke Up and Down Fishermen, Linglu High and Low Painting Building" and other poems, and praised the "Xiangjiang Guest Sense" and "Meichao Xuan Ri Yong" and "Shougang Gong Seventy" and other poems (August 7, 1971 Zhou Gong sent a letter to Cheng Xi, see Chen Zhi, Meng Fei, and Li Hanjie's "Zhou Ce Longitudinal Study Letter Collection", Zhonghua Bookstore, 2016, p. 94). Zhou Gong keenly found that the title of the book "Collection of Lingchao Poetry and Songs" contained a lot of "mouth" parts, so he made "Drama with Mouth Font Title Professor Cheng Xi 'Lingchao Xuan Poetry and Song Collection'", thinking that it was a joke. At the beginning of the poem, there is the author Xiao Xuyun: "A total of sixty-four mouths, which is also the number of "Zhou Yi". The original title of the book has many words, so this style is used. Chen Shenjiong and Cai Huang had thirty-nine words at the door. "Its poetic cloud:
Lei Lei sang and cried, and simply scolded Gao.
The spirit word instrument is ridiculous, and the pinzao key is loud.
The poem contains six hundred and forty words, with a total of sixty-four words, which coincides with the number of sixty-four trigrams in the Zhou Yi. There is also an inscription after the poem: "Zhongyan my brother is just laughing, and brother Zhou Ce is not a draft." This verse also contains ten "mouths." This poem was written in October 1971 in Madison, and although Zhou Gong lived here for many years, he still called it "Strange Land", which is more poetic in the literal meaning of these two words. This poem is included in page 155 of the Zhou Ce Zhong's Old Poems. Its form is quite similar to the place name poems, medicine poems, and Jianjie poems in the Six Dynasties poems, which shows that Zhou Gong's poetry is influenced by the poetics of the Six Dynasties, and it can also be seen that he is a funny and elegant Character of the Six Dynasties.
The Shen Jiong mentioned in the prologue of this game is a chen dynasty person in the southern dynasty. Shen Jiong suffered chaos in his life, and most people who have read the literary history of the Six Dynasties know that he has a "Return to the Soul", but they may not know that he also wrote a lot of miscellaneous poems in his early years, including eight-tone poems, zodiac poems, clutch poems, and Cai Huangmen's oral verses also belong to this category:
Huan Huan Gong Ge Road, Lingling Valley Mouth Lu.
Who knows the famous utensils, the language is rugged.
From the perspective of the awakening of the expression, Zhou Gong's work has obviously prevailed. Comparing all the "mouth" numbers in the two sentences, Zhou Gong is also superior. Throughout the ages, both poets have made words for the sake of "mouth", intended to be playful, and belong to the game text.
Cheng Xi has been in contact with Zhou Gong for many years and has a close relationship, so he can make such jokes and jokes, without formality. In July 1997, Cheng Xi died, and Zhou Gong wrote Lianyun:
Teaching is difficult, but it is a pity that it is related to people, potential, and time;
In the face of chaos, I prefer to open my mind from painting, poetry and music.
Shanglian lamented Cheng Xi's ordinary life, and Xialian praised Cheng Xi's talent and learning, concise and concise, and the purpose of words outside the words, quite a sigh of unfinished talent in ancient articles. In October 1993, Cheng Xi printed a volume of "The Rise and Fall of Overseas Sinology" in handwriting, which was not printed much and was not very popular. I have seen this book on the shelves of the Yenching Library in Harvard, and I have read it once, and the impression left at that time is quite mutually corroborating with the comments on the coffin written by Zhou Gong now. In addition to The Link, Zhou Gong also wrote a eulogy, copied two copies, and ordered his family to cremate it in front of Cheng Xi's tomb. Unfortunately, there are probably not many people who know Cheng Xi now.
This "kou font" poem can be classified into the category of miscellaneous poems, and it can also be reminiscent of the famous poem "Eight Immortals in Drinking" in Du Fu's poem. The poem writes about eight celebrities who became addicted to good wine in the Tang Dynasty: He Zhizhang, Li Shizhi, Li Zhen, Cui Zongzhi, Su Jin, Li Bai, Zhang Xu, and Jiao Sui. There is no one in the world who drinks alcohol, or who loves poetry, who does not love to recite this poem. If you read this poem on a drinking occasion, it is naturally particularly relevant and has a special meaning. Even if there are people on the wine table who do not love wine, lifting out these eight wine immortals is enough to make them dumb and indefensible. According to the "Tanji Series", The Qing Dynasty Zhang Chao once used the "Eight Immortals Song in Drinking" as a liquor order, called "Eight Immortals in Drinking Order": "Drink every time you drink, and those who break through the mouth do not count; every hook turns, and the order is ordered to go down the line... The guests here may not remember this poem, but may wish to write the first word of each sentence on a piece of paper, a total of twenty-two words, and store it in the prison order office to avoid mistakes." Each person in the seat recites a word in the poem in turn, and the person who has a "mouth" in each sentence drinks, and the number of drinks depends on the number of words. For example, if the first sentence is recited, "Zhizhang rides like a boat", those who encounter the words "Zhi", "Ride" and "Boat" must drink alcohol. From the perspective of the liquor order, the "Song of the Eight Immortals in Drinking" can also be regarded as the "mouth font" in the poem, which is convenient for reading and using when performing the order. If you want to stir up the drinking atmosphere more lively, it is recommended to directly use the two oral font poems of Shen Jiong and Zhou Gong as the liquor order.
"Abandoned Garden Poetry"
Share the fun of word games with friends
Zhou Gong liked poetry bells since childhood, and he was ruthless to the original category of poetry bells, and he has always been eager to try. On a certain day in June 1958, at the residence of Professor Yang Liansheng in Cambridge, Massachusetts, during the banquet, Professor Liu Zijian ordered Zhou Gong to make a ruthless pair with the title of "Space Age Swing Dance", and Zhou Gong improvised into "Ruthless Pair", and the whole poem is as follows:
Zi Jian was ruthless, and there was no fun to talk about.
The space age is swinging and dancing, and the moon is clearly separated.
The ruthless pair is generally a couplet of sentences, and Zhou Gong has put together two pairs of ruthless pairs here, and then spelled them together into seven unique songs. He himself also attached a long explanation, which made people can't help but be amused after reading it:
In the second sentence, the use of "son" to "gu" is obvious. The ancients had "and" as "gangrene". "All diseases die" become "disease and gangrene death", so "jian" is used as "and". "Birth" versus "life" is a conjunction. The first word of the last two sentences is "sun" to "moon", and the second word is "color" to "emptiness", which is the Buddhist language. "Hour" vs. "minute". "Ming" and "generation" are paired with conjunctions. Lu Fangweng's poem has "Iron Horse Autumn Wind Great Scatter Pass", "Scatter Pass" is a place name, but the three words of "Don't", "Scatter" and "Guan" can be used as verbs, so they can be used as the opposite of "pendulum", "shake" and "dance". (Zhou Ce Zhong's Old Poems, p. 85)
After reading it, I saw in front of me the joyful scene of the princes jokingly talking and laughing at the yang mansion. Zhou Gong's serious tone and gushing rhetoric also remind me of the wide quotation and left and right Fengyuan in his magnum opus, "Ancient Witch Doctors and the Six Poetry Examinations: Exploring the Sources of Chinese Romantic Literature". Strictly speaking, this poem is not a typical ruthless pair, nor is it a good ruthless pair of works, but just a game of intelligent people. Zhou Gong tried his best to argue that although the upper and lower sentences were ruthless but still dual, the meaning was not to show off his talents and wisdom, but to share the fun of word games with friends and friends.
Zhou Gong also liked palindromic poetry. It is said that the palindrome originated from the poem "Xuan Jie Tu" by Dou Tao's wife Su Hui during the Sixteen Kingdoms. This figure of more than 800 words, whether reading positively, reverse reading, horizontal reading, oblique reading, interactive reading, back-reading one word reading, overlapping one word reading, can be read into poetry, can read three words, four words, five words, six words, seven words of more than a thousand poems, the form is ingenious, breathtaking. If this statement is credible, then palindromic poetry can also be said to be a product of the literary and artistic aesthetics of the Six Dynasties era. Zhou Gong once wrote "Sing Tao Ji You's Character Hui Style (Sending Mr. Wang Drunken Six)":
The stars are faint and the moon is gorgeous, and the island is fragrant with coconut trees.
The white sand on the sunny shore is chaotic, and the boat is sloping across the wilderness.
The poet added a self-annotation to this passage so that the reader could appreciate his painstaking efforts: "Written in a circle, it can be read from any word, from any direction, you can get five, six, or seven sentences, and read it separately, you can get long and short sentences, a total of about a thousand." (Zhou Ce Zhong's Old Poems, pp. 139-140) After all, Dou Tao's "Xuanjie Tu" has more than 800 words, and Zhou Gong's palindromic poems are only a few twenty words, but they contain five, six, and seven sentences and different words and words, and they are composed of about a thousand pieces, and their changes are numerous, the derivative force is abundant, magical, and unexpected. According to this, this poem "Character Back style" can be said to be blue out of blue and better than blue compared to "Xuanjie Tu". Zhou Gong proudly referred to this "character and character style" as "Reincarnation of Chinese Poetry", and often gathered with friends to have fun.
Whether it is a poetry bell, a ruthless pair, or a collection of sentence poems, palindromic poems, they all pay attention to the clever arrangement of words, the use of magic, and the unity of mind. Metaphorically, this is a kind of writing acrobatics, spelling is skill, the habitual is the teacher, and practice makes perfect. Because he loves this way, Zhou Gong is tireless, and after decades, he has trained himself to become an all-round master. Because he loves this way, he attaches special importance to these literary and artistic forms, and his evaluation is particularly high. His little book, "Continuing Liang Qichao's "Gadgets in Pain":On Couplets and Collection Sentences( From Publishing House, 1964), has a clear and detailed exposition of this, and will not be repeated.
"Zhou Ce Zhong's Old Poems"
Zhou Gong's Sinology Studies
In this way, Zhou Gong can indeed be said to be a poetry master who prefers the acrobatics of words. However, I am a little worried: my emphasis on Zhou Gong's identity as a poet here, and his level of literary acrobatics, will not obscure Zhou Gong's achievements in normal poetic creation, and will it obscure his multiple contributions to serious research in other disciplines and other fields? In fact, Zhou Gongyu is quite good at poetry, such as Ji You, On Poetry, Inscription Painting, Singing harmony, and Gifts, and has a unique charm in small and long tones. His achievements in sinology (which he believed should be renamed "Huaxue") were also multifaceted. His May Fourth Movement: The Ideological Revolution in Modern China has long been widely disseminated, and was introduced to the mainland by the Jiangsu People's Publishing House in 1996 and published in the mainland, which can be called a classic in this field. He studied "Dream of the Red Chamber", authored a series of red studies papers such as "Yuxi, Marriage, and Dream of the Red Chamber - Tracing the Origin of Cao Xueqin's Family Political Relations", and organized international seminars on red studies, which promoted the expansion of red studies in western sinology circles. His monographs such as "Ancient Witch Doctors and the Six Poetry Examinations: Exploring the Origins of Chinese Romantic Literature" have also become well-known in the academic community. He has returned to China many times to give lectures, carry out academic exchanges, and strengthen the exchanges between domestic and international academic circles, which is also well known.
Finally, I would like to mention in particular two of his long papers. In December 1970, Zhou Gong read an important paper entitled "Wendao Exploration" at the "Symposium on Traditional Chinese Literary Criticism" held in St. Wacker, Virgin Islands, originally published in Chinese Literature: Essays Articles and Reviews, VI, Jan.1979. Professor Qian Nanxiu, a sister of scholars, once translated this article into a Chinese, with a translation of 30,000 words, which was first published in the "Study of Classical Literature" (1988) sponsored by the Institute of Classical Literature of Nanjing University, published by Nanjing University Press in 1989, and later included in Zhao Yi and Cheng Zhangcan, edited by Zhao Yi and Cheng Zhangcan, "Borrowing Stone Tashan: Thirty Years of Translation Essence" (Commercial Press, 2019). In chinese poetics, Zhou Gong also had many remarkable achievements. In 2014, World Book Publishing Company published the "Collected Works of Zhou Cezhong", including a volume of "Poetry in abandoned gardens", which selected sixteen classic articles on Zhou Gong's poetry criticism, of which The Early History of the Chinese Word Shih (Poetry), which was confirmed by Zhou Gong, Chinese of which was named "Poetry Character Ancient Yi Kao". First published in 1968, I translated it into Chinese in 1993 with a translation of 40,000 words, and was first published in the "Study of Classical Literature" (1991-1992) sponsored by the Institute of Classical Literature of Nanjing University, published by Nanjing University Press in 1994, and later included in "Borrowing Stone And Mountain: Thirty Years of Translation Essence". These two papers are the leading works of the study of the history of ancient literature of the Zhou Gong, and the "Poetry Character Ancient Yi Kao" is of particular significance to the study of the history of ancient poetry, although it has been published for more than half a century, it still has important academic reference value. Unfortunately, these two papers, especially the Chinese translation, are not widely circulated, and I will make a recommendation here by the way.
Cheng Zhangcan