Abstract
A substantial part of Lu You's poetry, composed in the rural setting of Shanyin, features rich soundscapes that offer insight into the poet's spatial imagination and local identity from an auditory perspective. The presence or absence of specific sounds, such as urban clamor or bells and drums, marks the distinction between rural and urban space. Through evocations of “the sounds of rivers and lakes” and “the sounds of peace and prosperity,” Shanyin is portrayed as an idealized space of reclusion and pastoral vision. Moreover, by incorporating auditory imagery associated with borderlands and imbuing natural sounds such as wind and rain with martial associations, Lu You reconfigures the Jiangnan countryside as a frontier battlefield, reshaping perceptions of time and space through sound. The sound of reading, in turn, reflects the poet's literati identity and transforms his dwelling in Shanyin into a spiritual space. Those polyphonic soundscapes serve as auditory projections of the poet's multifaceted identities. Lu You's auditory writing inherits conventionalized rhetoric from the poetic tradition, resonates with cultural imaginaries and collective identities associated with specific sonic symbols, while also revealing personal auditory associations and emotional projections. The diffuse, temporal, and non-figurative qualities of auditory experience further shape the poet's construction of Shanyin as a space.
Keywords
Lu You, Shanyin, countryside, soundscape, acoustic space
First Page
106
Last Page
115
Recommended Citation
Yao, Hua. 2026. "The Polyphonic Rural World: A Study of the Acoustic Space of Shanyin in Lu You's Poetry." Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art 46, (2): pp.106-115. https://tsla.researchcommons.org/journal/vol46/iss2/10
