(classical old)chinese literature Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

(classical old)chinese literature - Essay Example The title of the â€Å"Written Crossing the Yellow River† sets the place as Yellow River and signals the upcoming stream of pictorial images. Indeed, both the noun â€Å"river† and the verb â€Å"to cross† denote a motion and imply that the narrator sets out on a voyage. The first line begins with a noun and the narrator speaks about a define boat: the boat that he is in. The river was described as â€Å"great†. The reason of its greatness is explained in the second line as to its â€Å"swollen waters† (386). It can be inferred from the second line that the weather is either extremely bad or the narrator is exaggerating the weather conditions since he describes the waters as â€Å"stretched to the sky edge† (386). We understand from the third line that the storm has just broke out. The motion is intensified and accelerated as â€Å"the sky and waves split apart suddenly†. Although it is the boat that wavered back and forth with the wav es, the narrator perceives it as if sky and waves split apart. The waves which obscured the narrator's view, now allow him to see his hometown as we can infer from the forth line. â€Å"The thousands of homes† in his town appear momentarily with the ebb of the tides. In the fifth line, he shifts his focus from homes to the marketplace. The sixth line paints a bit blurry picture, since the narrator's actual perception and his imagination seems to be merged. The adverb â€Å"vaguely† signifies the blurring of perception and imagination as he contemplates mulberry and hemp displayed at the town's marketplace. Indeed, it was impossible for him to discern mulberry and hemp from that distance (if we accept the previous information that he sees the thousands of homes in that distance). However, he sees the mulberry and hemp with his mind eye or â€Å"makes them out†. The one and only symbol of the poem appears when his mind shifts from the actual view to the landscape of his imagination. Indeed, the symbol of â€Å"mulberry and hemp† traditionally stands for China and its cultivated lands. After a momentary distraction, in the seventh line, he brings back his focus to his homeland and fixes his gaze, nevertheless it was too late. While he turned to gaze back, the town has already been disappeared with the flow of the tides. The last line brings us back to the beginning as the waters stretched to the clouds obscuring the subject's view. The last line is metaphorically linked to the second line as the verb â€Å"stretched† repeated twice in the poem. Meanwhile, â€Å"the vast floods† replaced â€Å"swollen waters† and â€Å"the clouds† substituted for â€Å"sky's edge†. The â€Å"vast floods† and â€Å"swollen waters† function like metaphorical curtains first covering then under-covering then covering again the view of the subject. The poet uses the ebb and flow of the tides to create an optic al illusion, which hides and then reveals his homeland. This rhythmic flow of waters reminds the fort-da (Gone! and There!) game. According to Freud, the child plays this game in order to appease his anxiety due to the absence of the mother. In this case, it is the homeland that first â€Å"Gone!† then â€Å"There† again† and the subject tries to overcome his feelings of loss while he leaves his hometown behind. In fact, the rhythmic