Vietnamese poetry - An introduction.

As I'm in the habit of saying, I'm no expert, and this also applies to my knowledge of Vietnamese poetry and its various forms. My interest comes from a life-long love of eastern places and the beauty that emanates from them. What follows are my own gleanings, with as few mistakes and as few of my own opinions as possible.

Background.

Insofar as we can tell, the first recorded Vietnamese poem was composed in the year 987, and can only be called that because it was written in part by a Vietnamese, Do Phap Thuan (915-991), who was a Buddhist priest. As with most poetry of the region, Vietnamese verse was almost entirely written by Zen Buddhist priests, with few lay authors. Unsurprisingly, they were paradoxical and centred around Zen themes, and dealt with life's transience, "emptiness".

In the Ly dynasty (11th-12th centuries), poetry reflected the concerns of monastic life, whereas the Tran dynasty poetry of the succeeding two centuries (13th-14th) can be described as essentially court poetry, with different audiences, conventions, limitations and possibilities: it was written by emperors and high-ranking courtiers and generals, and only incidentally by Buddhist priests.

Never-the-less, as is always the case, the scholarly tradition written in a restrictive medium (Sino-Vietnamese, little more than a variety of Chinese) was not alone: there was a popular tradition. The "common" people went on living, thinking and creating poetry in the vernacular Vietnamese - a language unrelated to Chinese. Because this vernacular literature was not considered "high" culture, it was not recorded until the 18th century, and is difficult if not impossible to date. This was the voice of the people, passed orally from generation to generation: it's concerns were with both entertainment and moral teaching. A lot of it was also recited at festivals and song contests, that could, often did, last the whole night. It was full of love of nature, Buddhism, optimism, and sexual frankness: permeated and informed by the rhythm of life of the countryside.

After a century of hiatus, in which the Vietnamese language seemed to have undergone a profound transformation, the 18th and 19th centuries saw a flowering of the arts that even Vietnamese nowadays are still busy disentangling and analyzing. Much of this happened in the theatre and in the verse novel, a totally Vietnamese form almost unknown in Chinese literature.

Modern Vietnamese has been influenced by many of the poetic ideals of the West, especially French romanticism and symbolism. It's developed its own meters particularly the eight-syllable) , themes, own language, and conventions, bringing Vietnam into the 20th century with its fondness for novelty and experimentation.


Forms:

Other than the classical Chinese forms used by scholars and courtiers in the early years, a couple of popular forms have come down to us. Both of which, like many eastern forms derived from Chinese, are based on syllabic counts.

The "Luc bat" (six-eight) has linking couplets of alternating lines with 6 and eight syllables, with the end rhyme of the first 6 syllable line being picked up in the 6th syllable of the second line. In turn the end rhyme of the second line is picked up in the 6th syllable of the third line, with the 8th syllable of this line being picked up in the 6th syllable of the next line - and so on until the poem ends.

eg: one two three four five six(R1)
one two three four five six(R1) seven eight(R2)
one two three four five six(R2)
one two three four five six(R2) seven eight(R3)
one two three four five six(R3)
one two three four five six(R3) seven eight(R4)

.... for as long as it takes
some of them had hundreds of lines in the past,some were short and pithy.

where R1 indicates the first rhyme used in the poem, R2 indicates the second, R3
the third .... and so on

** Notice how the rhyme scheme after the first couplet cascades down through the following two lines, repeating the rhyme three times.

The "song that luc bat" (double seven six eight) opens with a couplet of 7 syllabic lines, and continues from there with the "luc bat" structure. To be completely honest, I'm not sure if the opening couplet rhymed, or if the line-end rhymes of it were picked up in the first six syllable line that followed it - though I strongly suspect this was the case, judging on other verse forms derived
from the Chinese.

Examples:

With luck and a fair wind, you'll find some of these in other files on "the cage unhitched" website.

Have fun,

Neil