Craft is a kaleidoscope through which the art of literature is reflected and coloured, and Matthew Salesses in his “Top 25 Notes on Craft” makes an astute comment about a fundamental distinction in plot structure between the Western and East Asian literary traditions. “Kishotenketsu”, or in Chinese, 起承轉合 (qǐ chéng zhuǎn hé) is, in many respects, the literary counterpoint to Freytag’s triangle. In retrospect, I had subconsciously performed an act of transmogrification when I opened a Chinese book and an English book, and it was not merely the technical differences of reading from up to down left as opposed to left to right or the mere mechanical differences in language. No, it was a fundamental shift in my expectation of tone, style, voice, and form. There is a certain characteristic which Salessess points out that Western critics term as “plotless” but I like to see it as like a meandering stream which makes a twist or turn here or there. Western literature though tends to end up like stream heading towards an eventual, climactic, waterfall. Salesses’s outlines was limited to the short story/ novel, so here I will provide an example from poetry.
Here are two excellent translations of Li Bai’s (701–762 C.E.) poem, “Quiet Night Thoughts.” Li Bai quietly conveys a deeply powerful, perhaps repressed, yearning for home in four short lines of sparse imagery and scant description.
In the Quiet Night
translated by Vikram Seth, 1992
The floor before my bed is bright:
Moonlight – like hoarfrost – in my room.
I lift my head and watch the moon.
I drop my head and think of home.
Quiet Night Thoughts
translated by Arthur Cooper, 1973
Before my bed
there is bright moonlight
So that it seems
Like frost on the ground:
Lifting my head
I watch the bright moon,
Lowering my head
I dream that I’m home.
The original poem is best described as a quatrain with an AABA rhyme scheme. In the first line, he sets the tone and introduces the scene, bright moonlight before the speaker’s bed. This is followed by a remark that it looks like frost on the ground. The third line, is the “ten” or “轉” is an action, the speaker’s action of lifting of his heading and gazing at the moon. In many respects, the volta had not a dissimilar effect of the “ten.” The moon inspires in the speaker, as revealed in the conclusion, a yearning for home. To think that this moon shining brightly upon him, is the same moon is shining upon his home; isn’t that a profound, sombre realization?
床前明月光
疑是地上霜
舉頭望明月
低頭思故鄉