This paper examines the evolution of the Ming philosopher Wang Yangming’s 王陽明 (1472–1529) poetry and his invention of “song poems” (歌詩 geshi). As a young man serving at the capital, Wang admired the politician Li Mengyang 李夢陽 (1473–1529). To participate in Li’s clique and his archaist movement—which sought to revive ancient styles of prose and poetry—Wang composed a prolific number of poems that conformed to the tonal patterns, rhyming schemes, and symmetrical grammatical structures characteristic of Tang poetry.
In 1506, Wang was banished to Guizhou province. Having endured great hardship and undergone what he described as moral enlightenment, Wang began to conceive a novel form of verse that defied the established poetic tradition. By systematically aligning the nine tones in succession, he created rotating melodic cycles in which sound movements would build to a crescendo before gradually waning. He called this innovation the “Singing Method Synchronizing the Nine Tones and the Four Seasons” (jiusheng siqi gefa 九聲四氣歌法). Wang explained that when people sing, they release the resentment buried in their chest, restoring equilibrium through exhalation. Over time, this process synchronizes their breathing, mood, and temperament with the natural rhythms of the four seasons.
To secure the rhyme and musicality of his “song poems,” Wang padded his verses with idioms, vulgar expressions, and at times, senseless repetitions. In a literary culture that sought to convey the moral Way (Dao) through the proper arrangement of words, Wang purposefully sacrificed literary refinement for melodic consistency. His invention encouraged his followers to flow—and ultimately merge—with nature’s rhythms. However, in his attempt to transcend the constraints of literary tradition and poetic diction, Wang unfastened an abstruse “Way” that could no longer be described, grasped, or retrieved through language.
This paper explores what it means for Wang Yangming to create form without content, the implications of pursuing morality without a moral reference, and how Wang’s invention of the “song poem” aligns with, complicates, and potentially jeopardizes his philosophical vision.
This paper examines the evolution of the Ming philosopher Wang Yangming’s 王陽明 (1472–1529) poetry and his invention of “song poems” (歌詩 geshi). Through examining the rhyming and stylistic features of Wang's invention of the “Singing Method Synchronizing the Nine Tones and the Four Seasons” (jiusheng siqi gefa 九聲四氣歌法), a compositional method that sacrificed literary refinement for musical consistency, the paper explores what it means for Wang Yangming to create poetic form without content, the implications of pursuing morality without a moral reference, and how Wang’s invention of the “song poem” aligns with, complicates, and potentially jeopardizes his philosophical vision.