A Study of Lotus Images in Chinese Classical Poetry
Keywords:
lotus, image, imagery, Chinese, classical poetryAbstract
Although there has been some research on images of lotus flowers in specific pieces of Chinese poetry in the past, no studies have explored the use of lotus imagery in Chinese poetry comprehensively. This research thus aims to study images of the lotus in Chinese classical poetry throughout its history and explore what these images are meant to convey. Poems featuring lotus flowers, appearing in various Chinese poems from the “Chinese Text Project”, an online database of the People’s Republic of China comprising collections of anthologies of Chinese poetry, were collected and analyzed. The results show that the construction of lotus imagery may be divided into three major groups: lotus imagery related to people, lotus imagery related to the description of natural landscapes, and lotus imagery conveying emotions and feelings. We also find that analogy, metaphor, and simile are the literary devices frequently used in the construction of such imagery. This study finds that even though the use of lotus imagery may vary depending on different perspectives of each individual poet, the construction of such lotus imagery divided into the three major groups listed above remains consistent throughout the history of Chinese classical poetry.
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