
This lecture introduces in general terms the life and poetic works of Meng Haoran.
This lecture teaches and practices the language of the poem. Vocabulary
list is provided and you are taught to recite the vocabularies and how
to use them in modern situation. I provided the Chinese character text,
pinyin sound text and English translation text of the poem in my power
point video, usually one passage of the poem on one slide. The literal
meaning of each poetic line is explained in English for you to
understand the poem phrase by phrase and line by line, and I will teach
you to recite the poem line by line twice. You will read after me and
try to imitate as closely as possible my pronunciation and tones.
Because the vocabulary lists include vocabularies from the most basic to
the advanced, any level of Chinese students can take the course,
although it is advisable to take my College Mandarin Chinese on Your Own
Beginning Level so that you are knowledgeable of the Chinese pinyin and
writing system and basic Chinese vocabularies.
This lecture teaches in English the poetic implication of the poem, the
relationship between its poetic form and meaning, its composition method
and Chinese philosophical influence on the poem, so that you understand
and appreciate the cultural implication of the poem in greatest
possible depth.
This lecture is a music recitation video made with my recitation of the poem, matched with beautiful classical Chinese music and painting, so that you can further familiarize and memorize the language of the poem, and appreciate the immortal, living beauty of the poem. In my recitation, I left space between the lines so that you can follow me to read line by line, and watch the video for multiple times until you memorize the poem.
Following the corresponding part of lecture description as provided for the above poem.
Study Li Shangyin's 'Chang o' text to trace immortality, loneliness, and moon imagery. Analyze how candle shadows, the Milky Way, and memory frame love beyond time.
Analyze Li Shangyin poetry, tracing private longing, memory, and oblivion through celestial night imagery of the moon and the Milky Way, and exploring immortality themes.
Li Shangyin's Chang O musical recitation guides viewers through a journey home toward the high end, affirming the path with a confident yes.
Explore Li Shangyin's "Brocade zither" through the hazy beauty and imagery that express remembrance of a tragic passion, unsatisfied desire, and transformation between realms, where absent love persists.
Introduce Li He, a Tang dynasty poet known for fantastical and supernatural imagery, whose brief life ended at 27 and whose unrecognized talent shaped his enduring, romantic poetry.
Explore Li Ho's Su Xiaoxiao Tomb through vivid imagery that fuses natural and supernatural to challenge cosmic order, tracing time, omniscience, and posthumans existence.
Explore Li Ho’s Su Xiaoxiao Tomb in a musical recitation video, analyzing performance choices, the singing challenge, and routine within the immortal classical Chinese poetry season 2 course.
Watch Li Ho's 'Autumn Comes' as a musical recitation video, part of season 2 of immortal classical Chinese poetry.
Transforms natural time into a devouring dragon, Li Ho's lament, to rationalize immortality's impossibility. Reveals self-mockery, elegiac intoxication, and the emperor's death concealed on the journey.
Explore Li Ho's 'Lament' through a musical recitation video and learn how performance and cadence illuminate themes in classical Chinese poetry.
This part two lecture practices Li Ho’s libation of the king of ch'in, focusing on vocabulary, translation into modern Chinese, and imagery of yellow birds and wine toasts.
Explore Li Ho's ballad of k'ung hou, showing immortality of art defying time through erotic, supernatural imagery and cosmic order disruption with redemption.
Hello everyone, the season 2 of “The Immortal Classical Chinese poetry: Learn Chinese language and Culture series” is launched! Like its predecessor season 1, this course will allow you to learn a wide range of Chinese language (such as language describing Nature, emotion, basic topics of human existence) by learning the breath-taking, immortal beauty of the original works of other most famous classical Chinese poets beyond Li Po, Wang Wei and Tu Fu, including Tang Dynasty poets such as the landscape poet Meng Haoran, the defiant poet ghost Li Ho, Li Shangyin, the obscure poet of passion and renunciation, Tao Yuanming and Han-shan Te-Ching, two renowned Taoist hermit poets in Jin and Ming Dynasty. These two seasons of Immortal Classical Chinese poetry will give you a comprehensive as well as in-depth picture of the most famous classical Chinese poets, especially the poets in the Tang Dynasty, the Golden Age of China as well as classical Chinese poetry.
More than any other countries, classical Chinese poetry is given the most prominent and exalted status, which not only shapes Chinese language, literature, arts, philosophy and religion, but also Chinese history and politics. Chinese scholar-officials are invariably good poets who had passed Civic Entrance Exams with good grades and became high officials by composing excellent poetry and to a lesser extent, great essays. Moreover, the language of classical Chinese poetry is surprisingly similar to modern Chinese language, therefore it is very adaptable to the language use in daily life. To the very few vocabularies that changes their usage in time, the course will explain carefully and provide the modern equivalent.
Each poem is taught in three lectures: the first lecture teaches the language of the poem. Vocabulary lists are provided and taught to recite and to use in modern situation, the literal meaning of each poetic line is explained in great detail, and each poetic line is led to recite and memorize, because the vocabulary lists include vocabularies from the most basic to the advanced, any level of Chinese students can take the course, although it is advisable to take my College Mandarin Chinese on Your Own Beginning Level so that you are knowledgeable of the Chinese pinyin and writing system and basic Chinese vocabularies. The second lecture teaches in English the poetic implication, the relationship between its poetic form and meaning, composition method and philosophical influence of the poem, so that you understand and appreciate the cultural implication of the poem in greatest depth. The third lecture is a music recitation video made with my recitation (which you can read after), beautiful classical Chinese music and painting, so that you can further familiarize and memorize the language of the poem, and appreciate the immortal, living beauty of these poems.
Through learning these two seasons of Immortal Classical Chinese Poetry Course in combination you will be able to take greatest pride in yourself in being able to understand the major poets of classical Chinese poetry whose works have amazing homology with Chinese arts, philosophy and religion and shapes Chinese history for thousands of years. While you take the aesthetic flight, your Chinese skill will also improve drastically with the wide range of vocabularies and expression in human existence you acquired in these two courses.