The Classical World for Inspiration - Case Study Example

Nature, Natural Occurrences, Fantasy and Drunkenness in the Lyrics of Shi’s Songs Introduction Su Shi (1037-1101) was considered the greatest of the Song writers of the ancient Chinese world. He looked to the classical world for his inspiration, as opposed to parties and lost love. His songs were inspired by nature, and flights of fancy. He saw nature, and natural occurrences, as being metaphors for certain things. In some of his songs, the overall impression and tone was one of optimism and joy. He saw that the dark side of life was something that was fleeting and impermanent, like the phases of the moon or a passing storm. In another song, however, the overall tone was tiredness, and bitterness, and the desire to withdraw from society. What is striking about all of these three songs that will be examined in the essay below, is that they all were influenced by alcohol, and that they all, in one way or another, are focused upon nature. Nature and natural occurrences might be a metaphor for how he was feeling at that particular time, and they might just be the setting for the song. This essay will look at three different songs by Shi – “Song for the River Tune,” “Immortal by the River,” and “Settling Wind and Waves,” examining how these three songs are similar and how they differ. Body One thing that is obvious from the three songs selected is that Su Shi liked his wine. This no doubt colored his perceptions, for it seemed that every one of the songs was influenced by alcohol in some way. He was very explicit about this. For instance, in “Son for the River Tune,” Shi stated that he was “drinking till dawn I wrote this” (p. 577). In the “Immortal by the River,” he states that “I was drinking that night on Eastern Slope, I sobered and got drunk again...” (p. 578). The third song, “Settling Wind and Waves” refers to him sobering up from wine, and hinted that Shi was intoxicated - he states that he was traveling with a group of people, when they all ran into a rainstorm. However, he states that, even though the other people were thrown into confusion, he “didn't even notice” (p. 578). The best explanation for why he wouldn't have noticed something that confused everybody else is that he was intoxicated. This shows that Shi was probably a heavy drinker, and this might be where he got his inspiration. At any rate, the fact that Shi makes this fact explicit – that he was drinking when he wrote this song or that song – shows that Shi wants the reader to somehow relate his drinking to his lyrics. While alcohol plays a part in all three of the plays, that is not the only common thread that they have. Each of them relate to nature in some way, and how nature can serve as a metaphor for something else. In “Son for the River Tune,” the natural element that was inspirational and metaphorical is the moon and the heavens above. The moon was inspirational, in that Shi was evidently looking at the moon when he wrote this song. It was metaphorical, in that Shi saw the moon as being much like people themselves – just like people have a dark side and a light side, so does the moon. This is shown in the lyric that states “for mortals there is grief and joy, coming together and going apart; the moon has bright and shadowed phases, wholeness and then something gone...” (p. 578). The moon may be full and whole in a certain phase, and so might individuals. This is considered, by Shi, to be perfection, which doesn't last, anymore than any one phase of the moon might last. Nature plays a part in “Immortal by the River,” as well. In this case, the river was inspirational for the song, apparently. Shi indicated that he was listening to the river as he wrote the song, much like he was looking at the moon when he wrote the previous song. However, the river serves a different purpose in this song than the moon did in the previous song. This is because, in this particular song, the river does not seem to be metaphorical. It does not necessarily symbolize something else. Rather, it seems that, in this song, the river is only central to the imagery of the song, not the meaning, and the river is apparently what got the Shi to thinking about his life. Therefore, the tone and meaning of this song is different than the previous song. “Settling Wind and Waves” also uses nature as central to the imagery. In this case, however, nature is represented by the gathering storm. The imagery talks about thunder, as he states that his companions should “pay no heed to those sounds, piercing the woods, hitting leaves...” (p. 578). In this case, the storm plays a part that is much like the moon in the first song – it is metaphorical, in addition to being inspirational. It was inspirational in that, like the other two songs, it was the event that he was writing about that formed the central imagery of the song. In this case, the metaphor may be found in the lyrics that urge the companions to look to the sunshine that is on the hilltop, and the howling winds that were left behind. Like the moon in the first song, the storm shows the duality of life. Man has a light side and a dark side, and man will experience storms and sunshine in life. Like the moon has phases, so, too, does the weather – nothing is static, nothing is unchanging. People may be up one day, and down the next. People may be angry one day, and happy the next. This song is really a companion piece to the moon song, because it has much the same message as that song. Another similarity between all the songs is that they all apparently took place at night,or, at the very least, in darkness. This might be symbolic for Shi's thought processes – the night might have meant something special to him, as opposed to the daytime, and the night, itself, might be something that is metaphorical for the human condition. It might also just be that Shi did his best work at night, much like Shi apparently did his best work while he was drinking. The night theme is explicit in the first song, for this song is about the moon. Since the moon is most visible at night, night is apparently the time that this song took place. The second song, “Immortal by the River,” also took place at night – this is made plain by the fact that the song refers to night in the very first stanza, that states that he was “drinking that night on Eastern Slope,” and by the fact that he refers to the night ending towards the end of the song. The third song does not take place at night, but does, apparently, take place in darkness – the darkness of the gathering storm. Yes, there is sunshine, as well, just around the corner, but the darkness of the storm is what forms the central imagery for the overall song. While these are all similarities that are in the works, there are differences, as well. For one, the tone of the three songs differ slightly from one another. The tone ranges from pessimistic and angry, to optimistic and happy. The first of the songs, “Song for the River Tune,” has a tone which is optimistic and lively. Shi talks about how he wants to dance in the heavens, among the moon, even if it would be cold to do so. He openly realizes that there is sadness in life, but joy, as well, and the joy of life is what he concentrates on in this song – he indicates that he wants to “continue long to share across a thousand miles its lovely graces” (p. 578). The third song, “Settling Wind and Waves” has much the same optimistic tone. He talks about whistling and chanting as he walks along, in the rain, then goes on to say that he moves “more free than on horse” (p. 579). He goes on to say that he is not afraid, and that, even if it never stopped raining, he would be just as happy – he indicates that he wouldn't mind if his life was spent in the rain, wearing a raincoat. He also talks about how the sunshine on the hilltop is beckoning him, and welcoming him. His other companions may be confused and disoriented by the storm, but not Shi – he knows that the storm is temporary, and that, even if the storm is not temporary, he would be just as happy in his life. This shows that, even if the bad things in his life are relentless, he can still come out on top, because he will always see the silver lining in every dark cloud. These two songs show the optimistic and happy side of Shi – he was philosophical about life, but, for the most part, he found that life was pretty grand. The second song, however, has a distinctly different tone from the other two. This song also seems to be less about imagery and metaphor as it is about him thinking hard about his life while waiting for somebody to answer the gate and let him in. In this case, he talks about resentment about his busy life, and about how everybody always wants something from him. He feels that he is not living for himself but for other people, and this is shown in the lyric that states that he “always resented how this body has never been my own.” (p. 578). He longs to get away from the rat race, and get away from society and others. He wants to just set off on a boat and travel the rivers and lodges for the rest of his life, leaving companionship behind. Therefore, the tone of the second song is considerably different than the tone of the other two songs. The third song seems to say that nothing is ever as bad as it seems, and that, even if it is as bad as it seems, you just have to have the right attitude. The first song has Shi wanting to dance among the stars, as he tells the mortals on this earth that they should seek the light side of others, while acknowledging the dark side of these others. The second, song, however, is teeming with bitterness, resentment and misanthropy. People want too much from him, and all he desires is to get away from everybody and live his life for himself. There is another difference, in that the first song has a kind of fanciful tone to it, at least in the beginning stanzas, while the other two songs do not have this fanciful feel. He states, in the first song, “Song for the River Tune,” that he wants to go to the palaces in the sky and “ride the wind up there” (p. 577). Granted, he also fears the cold that would be in the heavens, and doesn’t think that he could bear it, but these lyrics show that he was thinking about these flights of fancy. Therefore, this song has more of a dream-like feel than the other two. The second song was firmly rooted on earth, and there was not anything dreamy or fanciful about this particular song. Shi was talking about how the servant boy was snoring, and how he was standing at a gate, wanting entrance into an abode, but apparently being denied. The third song was much like the second song - there is not the dream-like quality of the first song, and no flights of fancy. There is not a wish or a desire that is not accessible to Shi in this song, like there was in the first song. Therefore, the imagery in this song, much like the second song, but unlike the first song, is based upon reality and what was right in front of Shi during this time. It was not based upon some kind of dream or fantasy. Conclusion In the three songs that were studied, there were definite connections and similarities, all of which tells us something about the Shi and how his thought processes were formed. He was evidently fascinated and inspired by nature and natural occurrences – nature and natural occurrences meant something to him, and spoke to him about the human condition. While it seems clichéd now to say things like it is always darkest before the dawn, or that human beings are like the moon, with light sides and dark sides, these observations were probably more fresh during Shi’s time. He was able to make observations about the human condition, and he was able to relate them to the world around him. Whether the observation was that all of us have a light side and a dark side, and, like the phases of the moon, no one person will always display his or her light side or dark side to the world, or that there will always be sunshine ahead, even in the darkest of storms, Shi saw that nature was much like our individual psyches and experiences. He saw nature and natural occurrences as ways to find optimism in life, and to encourage others to do the same. The one exception to this is the second song, which was so different from the other two. In this one, Shi just seemed to be fed up. Of all the songs, the nature or natural occurrence played the least part in the central theme – he didn’t build that particular song around the river that was in the title of the song, so much as he mentions it briefly, then indicates that he wanted to use that river to sail away from society and the people who are pressuring him. Therefore, it seems almost like he wanted to give credit to nature when he was feeling good, because his feeling good was apparently the times when nature inspired him. Yet, when he was feeling bad, he didn’t seem to want to make nature the central theme. Shi’s songs show that he was, for the most part, an optimistic sort, and they also showed that he loved his alcohol. He made a point, in every one of these songs, that he was drunk or coming off of a drunk at the time that he wrote them. This may be significant in that Shi is trying to tell the audience something – that perhaps he cannot be entirely believed in his observations, because these observations were seen through the haze of alcohol. Or, perhaps he was stating merely that alcohol was an inspiration for him, much like the nature and natural occurrences themselves. Perhaps the message was that he was able to be optimistic about human nature and about the future because of his drunkenness. It is difficult to ascertain exactly what purpose his talking about alcohol and drunkenness meant to him, but, one thing is certain, and that is that alcohol, like nature, played a major role in these lyrics. Therefore, Shi was like many songwriters of today – he took his inspirations from the world around him, and saw meaning in every action. The meaning frequently was that life was joyful, or, at the very least, dynamic. Sometimes the meaning was that the world was a place of bitterness and pressure. Whatever the meaning was, Shi was able to take his world and make it the center focus of his lyrics and songs. Read More