The Sounds of the Tang Poetry (5) | Regulated Poetic Forms & Modes of Thinking: Sonnet and Lüshi

Host: Prof Zong-qi Cai, Program Host

Going beyond the technical issues of tonal patterning, this episode discusses how the regulated poetic forms of Shakespearean sonnets and Chinese regulated verse embody  the Western dualistic and Chinese yin-yang worldviews, respectively.  Shakespeare’s sonnet 18 and Du Fu’s “Spring Scene” are compared, in both form and content, to illustrate the fundamental differences in the Elizabethan and traditional Chinese thinking about nature and humanity.