c. 698–c. 756
Wang Changling
王昌齡
Read Wang Changling’s vows, frontier music, domestic regret, and farewells as distinct voices within the compact space of a seven-character quatrain.
Wang Changling, courtesy name Shaobo, wrote in the eighth-century Tang world. The Wikisource author record lists his works and links the traditional biographies; approximate dates are used here. His poems on this shelf often share the seven-character quatrain’s brief shape while placing the reader in very different speaking situations.
Two frontier positions
The Vow at Qinghai moves from clouds, mountains, and an isolated city to armor worn through by repeated fighting. The closing promise makes return conditional on victory. Notice that the vow points forward: it does not report an accomplished success.
New Music, Old Parting opens with a performance but finds that a new tune cannot remove an old sorrow. Read the contrast between “new” and “old,” then follow the final movement away from the performers to the moon over the Great Wall. These two poems should not be reduced to one uniform attitude toward service.
Shift the place of speaking
In Regret in the Chamber, a young woman’s spring outing changes when she sees the willows. The final regret concerns her husband’s pursuit of rank. Read the sudden turn in her understanding beside the military speaker’s resolve, without making either voice speak for everyone.
Farewell at Hibiscus Tower: I gives a departing friend a message for people elsewhere. The image of ice in a jade vessel concerns the speaker’s inward character; the rain and mountains remain the immediate farewell setting.
The individual pages link their Chinese sources, chiefly Quan Tang shi, juan 143. Numbered pieces are complete poems within sequences. The jueju guide explains their shared scale; the differing final turns show what each does with it.
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