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Based on "Three Beauties" theory of Xu Yuanchong, this paper conducts an analysis on Arthur Cooper's translation of "送瘟神"(2nd poem) from three aspects: the beauty of sense, sound and form, finding that, because of his lack of empathy for the original poem, Cooper fails to convey the connotation of the original poem, the rhythm and the form of the translated poem do not match Chinese classical poetry, with three beauties having not been achieved. Thus, the author proposes that, in order to better spread the culture of Chinese classical poetry and convey China's core spirit to the world, China should focus on cultivating the domestic talents who have a deep understanding about Chinese culture, who are proficient not only in Chinese classical poetry, but also in classical poetry translation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

POEMS syndrome is a rare paraneoplastic disorder characterized secondary to a rare plasma cell dyscrasia. Here, we aimed to analyze the clinical characteristics of large sample cases of POEMS in Chinese subjects through making a review of the Chinese literature. Four databases were electronically searched from inception until October 2016. Case reports and case series were identified. Six hundred studies with 1946 participants were identified. The first case was reported in 1986, and the number of reported cases peaked in 2009 and 2010. The top seven provinces on the number of reported cases were in the south-east area of China. The top three departments on the number of published papers and reported cases were ordinally department of Neurology, Hematology, and Endocrinology. The ratio of male to female was about 2.23. The range of age onset was from 10 to 81 years with the mean age of 46.39 (SD, 12.10 years). The initial symptoms of POEMS with peripheral neuropathy, edema and effusions, endocrinopathy, skin changes, and organomegaly accounted for 60.44, 15.72, 9.87, 8.05, and 2.13%, respectively, and subsequently acquired above symptoms as the prevalence was 99.49, 81.91, 75.56, 77.08, and 83.09%, respectively. The present study would help to understand the clinical presentations of POEMS syndrome in the Chinese population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Phenological records in historical documents have been proven to be of unique value for reconstructing past climate changes. As a literary genre, poetry reached its peak in the Tang and Song dynasties (618–1279 CE) in China. Sources from this period could provide abundant phenological records in the absence of phenological observations. However, the reliability of phenological records from poems, as well as their processing methods, remains to be comprehensively summarized and discussed. In this paper, after introducing the certainties and uncertainties of phenological information in poems, the key processing steps and methods for deriving phenological records from poems and using them in past climate change studies are discussed: (1) two principles, namely the principle of conservatism and the principle of personal experience, should be followed to reduce uncertainties; (2) the phenological records in poems need to be filtered according to the types of poems, background information, rhetorical devices, spatial representations, and human influence; (3) animals and plants are identified at the species level according to their modern distributions and the sequences of different phenophases; (4) phenophases in poems are identified on the basis of modern observation criteria; (5) the dates and sites for the phenophases in poems are confirmed from background information and related studies. As a case study, 86 phenological records from poems of the Tang Dynasty in the Guanzhong region in China were extracted to reconstruct annual temperature anomalies in specific years in the period between 600 and 900 CE. Following this, the reconstruction from poems was compared with relevant reconstructions in published studies to demonstrate the validity and reliability of phenological records from poems in studies of past climate changes. This paper reveals that the phenological records from poems could be useful evidence of past climate changes after being scientifically processed. This could provide an important reference for future studies in this domain, in both principle and methodology, pursuant of extracting and applying phenological records from poems for larger areas and different periods in Chinese history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Few Tibetan figures have left an impression on the Himalayan landscape, both literary and geographic, as indelibly as Mi la ras pa (ca. 1028–1111), whose career as meditator and poet was punctuated by travel across the borderlands of southern Tibet. This essay will begin to address the defining role of place in Tibetan biographical literature by examining the intersections of text and terrain in the recording of an individual's life. In particular, this study examines sites of transformation in Mi la ras pa's biographical narratives, arguing for what might be called a geographic biography by examining the dialogical relationship between a life story recorded on paper and a life imprinted on the ground. It first considers the broad paradigms for landscaping the environment witnessed in Tibetan literature. It then examines ways in which the yogin's early biographical tradition treated the category of sacred place, creating increasingly detailed maps of the yogin's life, and how those maps were understood and reinterpreted. The paper concludes by addressing two specific modes of transformation in the life story — contested place and re-imagined place — exploring new geographies of consecration, dominion, and praxis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The poem West Lake, set to the tune of "Ho Hsin Lang" ("Congratulating the Bridegroom") and attributed to Wen Jiweng of the late Southern Song (1127-1279), has been read with admiration by critics and ordinary people alike throughout the centuries. However, this poem has never been thoroughly studied. This paper attempts to provide a more comprehensive interpretation of this remarkable poem and its probable author's career in order to fill this lacuna in scholarship. It begins with an examination of the poem's composition and circulation as recorded in available manuscripts. It then extends to the investigation of the man Wen Jiweng: his career, his learning, and his extant writings. The third section of the paper presents a close reading of the poem with an eye to all of the historical allusions and the artistic features found in the text. The last section of the paper explores the theme of the fall of the Southern Song, caused by the relentless pursuit of pleasure among the elite and well-to-do urban dwellers. The expression of this theme as a prediction of the downfall of the dynasty has won Wen Jiweng a significant place in the history of Southern Song poetry and Chinese culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the relationship between the Southern Society (Nanshe, 南社), an important literary group in the late Qing Dynasty and early Republican China, and the Chinese lyrical tradition. The Southern Society should be regarded as a community united by common feelings and affections. The members' writings, especially their classic poetry, give structure to the intellectuals' feelings during a period of political turmoil. The lyricism of the Southern Society represents a specific kind of historical philosophy about Chinese modernity, and it can help us understand the literary milieu and cultural politics of a period of transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Among the key themes of contemporary Macao poetry, chance and luck loom large, along with their figuration in Macao life through sites such as casinos and temples, through personae such as those of the gambler, the beggar, the prostitute. Macao as dot-on-the-map is likewise conceived as a site for all kinds of portal semiotics, as paradigm for cultural crossing and cultural shift. Macao may be regarded as a work enduring (in Brechtian terms) because it is unfinished. While this is a formula that could be notionally applied to any city, this view seems particularly apt given both the extraordinary pace of change in post-handover Macao (i.e. since 1999), and the present bubble-bursting effect of the 2008 "financial tsunami". Relating Augé's conception of "non-places" to Eco's notion of open (as opposed to closed) text, this paper observes that consciousness of place in contemporary Macao poetry appears to be dominated by two kinds of space, glossed here as "Macao space" and "anywhere space". Macao space is uniquely of an historical moment and place, something culturally positioned; in anywhere space (e.g. inside of a casino or an airport) subjects are hailed by consumption-oriented reifications of putative universal value. The contemporary Macao poetry typically values Macao space and sees it as under threat from the "non-negotiable" space of culture that could be anywhere. Interested in the paradoxes, ironies and hypocrisies inherent in the present-day culture, politics and international position of Macao, the new Macao poetry reveals a place-based poetics deeply concerned with Macao identity, its evolution and potentials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the Lingbao Scripture on the Numinous Stanzas of the Cavern Heavens, one of the fundamental texts of the Lingbao corpus. The title of the scripture was listed in the Wondrous Scriptures in the Perfect Script of Lingbao in Ten Sections, and the present text corresponds to number 3 of the Lingbao corpus. This scripture of the canonical Lingbao corpus is not included in the Ming Daoist Canon, and the present work appears to be incomplete. Two versions have been found among the Dunhuang manuscripts. Most of the scripture is in Pelliot 2399, but the opening passages are missing. Stein 2915 also includes part of this scripture, and Wushang piyao contains the Numinous Stanzas of the thirty-two heavens, which forms the core of this scripture. The scripture includes the Numinous Stanzas of the thirty-two heavens and a legend of deities chanting these stanzas. The legend describes a gathering at the court of Celestial Worthy and the sovereigns of the Thirty-Two Heavens sings hymns extolling the blissful joy. These stanzas occupy the major part of the present scripture and are reproduced here in sacred words, corresponding to the esoteric sounds of the heavens. This paper analyses the content of the Numinous Stanzas of the Cavern Heavens from various perspectives: cosmology, philology, the concept of salvation, the structure of the scripture, the reciting tradition, etc. I investigate these issues in order to reveal the main ideas of the Lingbao scriptural tradition in the Six Dynasties Period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Poetic formulas (phrases that recur in the same metrical position in one or several poems) are an acoustic pattern employed frequently in the Shijing. In Modern Chinese they are called chongfu duanyu, xiyu, taoyu, or xiangtong ju. The formulas sometimes appear in xing ("stimulus") lines, and xing lines have been considered the principal reason for their frequent use. The precise relationship between xing lines and the overall poetic meaning has long been controversial. The xing lines that appear as formulas can be treated negatively as mere copying or blind tradition, but if they are understood properly in a system of oral expression, they can then be seen as a free and creative use of repetition, with fixed phrases representing a set theme or related images. In this paper, I examine the formulas "in the hills there is … in the marshes there is…" and "in the South there is…", I show that, since the early Zhou Period, these formulas do not just indicate a fixed mood or set of images but are really metaphors for a certain geographical region, and especially from the area around the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River to the Jiang and Han Rivers. In other words, these formulas are a concretization of this dry, cold region's thirst for moisture and warmth, and the source of metaphors for longing and hope. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is generally assumed that, throughout the Qing dynasty, there was only translated literature in the Manchu language and that, by the nineteenth century, the Manchu literati had become too "sinicized" to unleash literary creativity in their native language. Nevertheless the discovery of a midnineteenth-century manuscript of Manchu literary verse, penned by the well-known prose translator Jakdan, points to the fact that Manchu belles-lettres existed even at a time when the role of Manchu in practical arenas was much in decline within the Qing empire in China. In addition to a preliminary account of the poetic forms found in Jakdan's Manju gisun i yobo maktara sarkiyan ("Transcript of bantering in Manchu language"), a supplementary volume to the Jabduha ucuri amtanggai baita ("Leisurely delights"), two intricate poems from the collection of Manchu verse are here presented (in transcription), translated and annotated for the first time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An essay is presented on poetry in Macao as a multicultural and as a cross-cultural phenomenon. Macao in China is a city in southern China and is promoted is promoted as a tourist destination that offers ultramodern casinos and hotels alongside World Heritage architecture. Information about various poetries concerned with Macao is presented including "I Roll the Dice: Contemporary Macao Poetry, Tea, and I am leaving tomorrow."

This article presents an analysis of the work of Taiwanese poet Yang Mu. Mu's poetry is seen as standing apart from the three dominant cultural narratives that have existed in Taiwan's history, the one created by its original settlers, the struggle between Western and Chinese thought created by European colonizers, and the search for a Taiwanese identity separate from China and its influence. Yang Mu's poems are often first person statements by fictional individuals caught in the currents of Taiwan's history, from Dutch colonizers of the 17th century to a contemporary Taiwanese making his first visit to mainland China. This device allows Yang Mu to stand apart from and comment upon the dominant narratives.

Modern critics generally locate the beginning of the Chinese aesthetic tradition in the Confucian commentarial repression of the "love and marriage" poems of the "Book of Songs." This article argues that these commentators were actually using the "Songs" to engage with Han dynasty debates about desire, and in doing so formulated a new, gendered way of presenting poems as parables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Compares the online poetry communities of China with the United States. Development of Web culture in China; Links between Web literature and print culture in China; Editorial and censorship functions of Web moderators; Tendency for English-language research to focus almost exclusively on questions of censorship.

Explores the contemporary poetry scene in China. Trends in contemporary avant-garde poetry; Differences between political lyricism and avant-garde poetry; Re-inventions of traditional Chinese notions of poetry and poethood; Marketization of contemporary poetry.

Deals with the reputation of Chinese poet Li Bai. Name of Li Bai to English readers; His popularity; Details on the prestige of poets and poetry in China; Analysis on the literary works and visual images of Li Bai; Cause of representation of poets in the visual arts; Discussion of the arts of Li Bai in various dynasties; Exploration on the dynamic changes in the history of China's visual culture.