Reading Notes on "Poetic Remarks in the Human World, Annotated by Ye Jiaying"
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Recently, due to severe insomnia, I gave up my usual trashy novels and Bilibili videos before bed, dug out the Kindle reader I bought long ago, and figured out how to copy various forms of e-books directly onto it for reading. So I started looking for some longer books to read. I remembered that back in high school, Teacher Song recommended reading Ye Jiaying's Lectures on Poetry by Mr. Ye Jiaying. At the time, I was suffering greatly from the classical poetry appreciation sections in every Chinese exam, and I was completely clueless about all the metaphors, allusions, and such. But after reading that book, my view of poetry changed a lot — I could begin to understand what people meant by the "realm" of poetry. So I downloaded Renjian Cihua: Ye Jiaying's Annotated Edition onto my Kindle. Partly because I had read the original Renjian Cihua in high school, but reading the original text directly always left me feeling lost in a fog, so this also makes up for that earlier regret. It was absolutely not because I chose this book as a sleep aid.
As I've gotten older, I feel like I've increasingly lost the patience to read a book for a long stretch. I only read the famous quotes that circulate widely; when reading documentation, I just use AI to summarize and call it a day. No boss will wait for you to spend a month understanding all the documentation and textbooks before letting you start a project, and I've become less and less willing to wait for myself to actually get into a book. "Reading a book has a threshold" — many good books don't draw you in from the very first page; only by calming down and reading passage after passage do you slowly immerse yourself in the book's words. But I feel that since starting college, this threshold seems to have gotten higher and higher.
I hope I'm still the kid who loved reading.
September 7, 2026
I had read this passage before, and at the time I only felt that the second and third realms were the easiest to understand.
"衣带渐宽终不悔，为伊消得人憔悴" — originally it speaks of love, of the longing of separation. In a broader sense, it can also mean that a person has found a cause, a passion, or a beloved to which they are willing to devote their entire life.
As for "众里寻他千百度，回头蓦见，那人正在，灯火阑珊处" — if placed in the context of personal growth, it is the final realm, and can probably be used to express the feeling of finally realizing one's ideals after enduring countless hardships.
But as for the first line, at the time I just couldn't make sense of it. Now, after reading Mr. Ye's commentary, I feel suddenly enlightened, and even deeply moved.
The first realm is that of "昨夜西风凋碧树，独上高楼，望尽天涯路." In Taiwan, where the four seasons have no distinct changes, the realm expressed by these three lines is quite difficult to appreciate. But in northern China, whenever the jade dew withers and the golden wind suddenly rises, the yellowing and falling of plants is an extremely rapid and obvious phenomenon. Leaves fall from the vast forests, winds sweep across the open fields, and in the blink of an eye the vastness of heaven and earth is revealed. The new cold is like water, piercing not only the skin and bones but also the heart and spirit. Occasionally climbing to a height and gazing into the distance, a sense of vast desolation arises, making one feel as if something has been lost.
In a person's life, there is also a similar stage. At this point, one feels that they are no longer in the childishness and joyful wonder of the lingering spring days, nor in the tension and breathlessness of the scorching summer. It is the yellowing and falling plants that suddenly reveal the transformations of nature and the vastness of heaven and earth; it is the water-like new cold that suddenly awakens one's self-reflection and inner loneliness. At this time, one feels that the things they once knew and relied upon are gradually departing, gradually fading into the distance. Although one may feel a sense of melancholy about this, at the same time one also feels that these vanishing things had long ceased to bring satisfaction. This withering expands their broader and farther vision, freeing them from the childish indulgence and blindness of youth. They begin to seek something more real and more beautiful, and a need for pursuit and searching arises spontaneously from the depths of their heart. Thus, after "昨夜西风凋碧树," there immediately follows "独上高楼，望断天涯路."
"独" can be seen as expressing the loneliness and solitude of this realm; "上高楼" can be seen as expressing the yearning for lofty ideals; "望尽天涯路" can be seen as expressing the pursuit, search, and expectation for a broader and farther realm after casting off all childish indulgence and blindness. Yet the four fields are vast and boundless, and looking around in the vast haze, what one pursues is nowhere to be found.
Actually, what is described here is probably the situation most of us face at our current stage of life. I think this stage is roughly the period from high school graduation to college graduation. Although some people may start thinking about this question in high school, such behavior would probably be considered as having one's head in the clouds and would not be encouraged. The long nine years of compulsory education and three years of high school are nothing but lazy spring days and an unbearably suffocating hot summer. So starting from filling out college applications, the leaves fall from the vast forests, and the subsequent "Earth Online" main quest finally opens up endless side quests. Only then do we need to face this question actively or passively. After that, at countless forks in the road, we will have similar feelings. Computer science or electronics or finance or physics or math or mechanical engineering or automation? Where to go for graduate school — familiar professors at my own school, or a better platform with unfamiliar professors? Not to mention which research direction to choose — whether to participate in so-called "research" at all is itself a question worth discussing. Hot research directions are never in short supply: civil engineering to finance, computer science to artificial intelligence to "embodied intelligence?" — is it just buzzword hype or is there something real? Graduate school or employment? Struggle desperately for a higher degree and perhaps a higher starting salary? Or enter society early to receive vocational training or discipline? Not a single choice is clear, not a single piece of information is absolutely accurate. We crawled across that narrowest single-plank bridge, and when it all ended, we tried to cast off all childish indulgence and blindness. We left home and walked into the dazzling lights and all the prosperity we could see. But all of this is merely climbing the tall tower. We seem to only remember how to climb the tower, but not how to gaze across the endless road to the horizon. There are so many roads to the horizon — a lifetime is only one lifetime, so how could one possibly see all the possibilities of countless lives? Dazzled by the view from the tower, where can one find that road to the horizon worthy of "衣带渐宽终不悔，为伊消得人憔悴"?
I feel like I'm just venting here. After this, life goes on as usual — the experiments that need doing still need doing, the forms that need filling still need filling. I can only think, in the gaps between daily routines, about which road I'm actually walking on right now.
Next time I write, I hope I can understand Mr. Ye's exposition of the so-called "realm of poetry" in Renjian Cihua, and I also want to excerpt some examples about "association" from the commentary.
September 15, 2026
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Tang poetry and Song ci — what is the biggest difference between shi and ci? For a period of time, ci was considered something not fit for polite company. Unlike shi, which often expresses thoughts and aspirations, ci writes more about love between men and women, about lamenting spring and the sorrow of parting. We cannot critique ci using the critical perspective of shi, so what standard should we use? Mr. Wang Guowei proposed "realm is the supreme criterion for ci" as the evaluative standard.
Realm is anything the author actually feels. Summarizing it with pure emotion feels limiting; it is a kind of inner stirring of feeling, drifting and wavering yet vivid and true. And if a ci can make the reader, through just a few lines, feel the same thing as the poet, then the ci is said to have "realm."
Being able to perceive realm is actually a very precious quality. From words, from daily life, from the people I meet and the things I experience, I always hope I can feel something extra. Don't see a flower and just see a flower, don't see rain and just see rain. People should always give themselves some time to zone out — to empty their minds and do nothing, to lie on the sports field and watch the clouds. The clouds in Jiangsu are different from those in Inner Mongolia. The clouds in Inner Mongolia are mostly still and towering, like a castle on the horizon, connected to the fully extended skyline. The clouds in Jiangsu are drifting — you can see their movement so clearly, passing through the undulating high and low buildings in the distance, as if searching for something in the city. When zoning out, you can also do some divergent things — typing away on a keyboard you like, writing rambling words without logic, without structure, without citations, just like I'm doing now. When zoning out, you feel the flow of time become traceable and gentle, everything enters slow motion, the ticking of the clock like a visible colored wind winding around your fingertips. I feel it's a cyan-blue color with a touch of light green, like the color and scent of the short grass sprouts on the field. After writing too many argumentative essays, I always like reading some prose. When reading Cultural Perplexity in Agonized Travel, that feeling now seems like seeing the "selfless realm" described in the book. Although I can't remember now what place those words I secretly read while curled up on the dorm bed were describing, that open, vast, deep-breath feeling of sudden clarity still vaguely remains.
I should still give myself more time to zone out.