Secret Laid Bare: Close Reading of Chinese Poetry

Abstract

Abstract:In the most exciting results of linguistic criticism of poetic function in classical Chinese poetry, one sees an ideal integration of microattention to texts and macroinvestigation of grammars of Chinese poetics. The greatest contribution of this close reading of the sinologist brand is the laying bare—in plain analytical language—of the mechanism of Chinese poetics, long grudgingly guarded as some ineffable (zhike yihui buke yanchuan 只可意會不可言傳) secret.