sun notes db compare/contrast
Notes from the City of the Sun
Bei Dao (China)
Pronounce: https://www.howtopronounce.com/bei-dao/
Government officials exiled him because it was felt that his work influenced protests leading to the Tiananmen Square massacre. He returned to China in 2006 after lecturing at prestigious schools no doubt because of his international acclaim.
A significant portion of his works focus on freedom and exile. Poet Michael Palmer says of Dao that he “abjures overt political rhetoric while simultaneously keeping faith with his passionate belief in social reform and freedom of the creative imagination.”
He was born in Beijing, an ancient city. 15 Moments in History That Shaped Beijing https://theculturetrip.com/asia/china/articles/15-moments-in-history-that-shaped-beijing/
https://www.worldatlas.com/webimage/flags/countrys/asia/china.htm
Notes from the City of the Sun
Bei Dao is strongly impacted by both Chinese political changes as well as individualized thinking.
Notes’ series of abstractions are followed by striking visual images. Many of the images are rather obvious illustrations of some aspect of the abstraction. Examples:
· Labor uses a common image of “a pair of hands, encircling the earth.”
· People are shown in an original image of the moon “torn into gleaming grains of wheat and sown into the sky and earth.”
· Note the extended metaphor of the shattered mirror.
· There are more obvious images of political themes shown indirectly.
Examine how certain words in the last five stanzas (e.g., “at random,” “monotonous,” “cripple,”) function as a criticism of the political structure of the “motherland.”
Communist China’s vison of art is as a socialist tool that mirrors the masses.
Interview 2015
https://poetry.arizona.edu/blog/interview-bei-dao
The Reading Life: A Chinese Writer’s Poetics, and Politics 2010