Does the Chinese Written Language Facilitate Creativity in Chinese Poetry?

Every second that passes is history. It is sometimes easy to forget that every moment is a completely new moment and therefore has never occurred before. David Lodge in The State of the Language is aware of the forever changing universe and makes an amazing connection between time and language. He says, “any language is necessarily a finite system applied with different degrees of creativity to an infinite variety of situations, and most of the words and phrases we use are 'prefabricated' in the sense that we don’t coin new ones every time we speak.” This is an interesting idea to think about when discussing poetry. How does a poet creatively describe a brand new situation with prefabricated words and phrases? Are there aspects in written language that make one more creative than another? There is no doubt in my mind that a writer’s creative ability plays a huge part in the creativeness of a poem but all languages have “different degrees of creativity” and therefore there must be something specific to each language that makes it uniquely creative.

The Chinese language is immensely complex and one of the oldest written languages known to man. It has an ancient history that can only be matched by a handful of languages still used today. But what aspects of the language make it unique? Does the Chinese written language give the poet artistic liberty when creating poetry with prefabricated characters? Does the Chinese written language facilitate creativity in Chinese poetry?

In the Chinese language, just like in many other languages, there is not one clear-cut meaning to a character, but often multiple meanings that are mutually exclusive. A perfect example is Chinese word sheng which can be used as a noun, verb, and adjective all with extremely different implications (Liu, pg. 12). This is a huge advantage for the poet because several meanings can be compressed into one character, allowing for a full range of mood and emotion. This fact facilitates creativity in Chinese poetry because the poet can compose the poem in such a way that there is a primary meaning and several secondary meanings that add to the depth of the poem. The poet must carefully choose the combination of characters to not lead the reader in the wrong direction of interpreting the irrelevant meanings of each character. It is possible to have multiple poems combined into one poem.

The depth and creativity of the Chinese written language can be seen through the multiple translations that arise from a single Chinese poem. A perfect example is the two translations of the Meng Hao-Jan poem, Night on the Great River and Mooring on Chien-Te River (Sample poems from various translators, pg. 1). In Night on the Great River, the man in the poem is not alone because the first line says, “we anchor the boat alongside a hazy island,” while in Mooring on Chien-Te River, there is no mention