CHINESE POETRY AND ITS 

 CONNOTATIONS 1 



FLORENCE AYSCOUGrf 



One of the most important elements of poetry is its. 

 "connotation"; that is, to quote Webster, "the implication 

 of something besides itself." If this be true of all poetry 

 how much more so is it of the Chinese which, by reason of 

 its extreme terseness, reduces the art of connotation to the 

 very last degree. The difference between connotation, which 

 is suggestion, and allusion which is reference, must be clearly 

 defined and perhaps the following extract from Wells 

 Williams "Middle Kingdom" will make this distinction 

 apparent: — Vol. II, Chap. XIII. 



"It is a sensible remark of de Guignes, that 'the habit we fall into 

 of conceiving things according to the words which express them, often 

 leads us into error when reading the relations of travellers. Such 

 writers have seen objects altogether new, but they are compelled when 

 describing them, to employ equivalent terms in their own language in 

 order to be understood ; while these terms deceive the reader who 

 imagines that he sees such palaces, colonnades, peristyles, etc., under 

 these designations as he has been used to, when in fact, they are quite 

 another thing.' The same observation is true of other things than 

 architecture. ... If for example the utensils used by the Chinese* 

 to shave with were picked up in Portsmouth by some English navvy who 

 had never seen or heard of it, he would be more likely to call it an 

 oyster-knife, or a wedge than a razor ; while the use to which it is 

 applied must of course give it that name, and would if it were stilL 

 more unlike the Western article. 



1 Read before the Society, March 26th, 1920. 



