II. A Study of Rhetorical Devices in Modern Poetry
Chapter One: Surrealist Expressive Techniques in Modern Poetry
Section One: Surrealist Imagination
This article discusses the “surrealist expressive techniques,” which are not based on Surrealism (Surréalisme) as a theoretical foundation, especially not including collage and automatic writing. Although these two are indeed expressive techniques advocated by the surrealist school, they are not the focus of this discussion.
The author’s definition of “surrealist expressive techniques” originates from the activity of association, specifically the highest level of creative imagination: without relying on others’ descriptions, it is a psychological activity that creatively synthesizes stored representations in memory to independently generate novel, unique, and strange images. Through the combination of imagery, poets present new and unusual visual scenes that go beyond the shared aesthetic experience of ordinary people, thereby conveying the poet’s personal aesthetic appeal. This is similar to the cinematic technique of “montage”: according to the creator’s conception, shots (images) marked by different times and places are organically edited together, producing effects such as continuity (narrative axis), contrast, association, foreshadowing, and suspense, thus forming a special aesthetic experience with artistic value that expresses certain ideological content and can be participated in and understood by viewers (audience or readers), stimulating their imagination and aesthetic response.
Section Two: Types of Surrealist Expressive Techniques
In modern poetry texts, many expressive techniques appear that cannot be strictly categorized by traditional rhetorical devices. For example:
(1) collage cannot be analyzed merely through enumeration or decorative elaboration
(2) montage editing likewise cannot be explained solely through demonstration, exaggeration, or synesthesia. Because in terms of their expressive forms, both are not suitable to be analyzed through rhetorics that emphasize sentence-by-sentence interpretation. In this article, the author will discuss three main types of surrealist expressive techniques: transformational combination, montage editing, and surrealist performance.
I. Transformational Combination
“Transformational combination” refers to the deliberate combination of imagery of different natures—such as time, space, distance, sound, light, etc.—which produces novel and aesthetically transformed images, conveying an artistic conception of “illogical yet wondrous.”
In my own work, Chapter 11 “Imagery Transformation: Hyperbole” in Aesthetic Studies of Modern Poetry Rhetoric: The Aesthetics of Expressive Techniques, I used “transformational hyperbole” to explain the transformational combination of imagery of different natures that transcends ordinary aesthetic experience:
“Seven Summer Impressions in the Mountains: ‘The Sleepless Dog’” / Yu Guangzhong
Often, after the last bus has passed
the vastness of heaven and earth is reduced to nothing more than
a mile or half a mile away
the barking of dogs from distant houses, three or two sounds
only the lamp can understand
at this hour, the white-haired man under the lamp
is also a sleepless dog
but guarding a different kind of night
barking at a different kind of shadow
if one listens from farther away
— for example, a hundred years away
it becomes clearly audible
distinctly
In this passage, the poet first uses a “space-compression hyperbole”: “the vastness of heaven and earth is reduced to / a mile or half a mile away / the barking of dogs from distant houses, three or two sounds,” compressing the vast space of heaven and earth toward sound. This is also a “transformational hyperbole.” Although the barking of dogs coming from distant houses is one way of measuring distance, heaven and earth cannot possibly be condensed into “three or two sounds” of barking; thus it contains a transformation component similar to synesthesia and qualitative conversion. Later, the poet again uses “transformational hyperbole”: “if one listens from farther away / — for example, a hundred years away / it becomes clearly audible,” using time (one hundred years) as a unit for measuring distance. Here, time as the vehicle of modification and distance as the base image are clearly not the same type of imagery, thus this is also a technique of “transformational combination.”
“Listening in the Deep Mountains at Night” / Yu Guangzhong
The mountains are deep, the night endless
all sounds merge into a dream
what could be more audible
than absolute silence?
Even the longest, busiest history
must have such a moment
when no argument is needed
but what about the wind, you ask
the wind? that is time passing through
bringing a faint, occasional
faint echo
“but what about the wind, you ask / the wind? that is time passing through / bringing a faint, occasional / faint echo,” through the echo produced by the wind, one perceives that time is passing through. This is not a simple sensory transposition or synesthetic conversion of sound into form, because time has no concrete shape; this is clearly an imagery combination produced through material transformation.
II. Montage Editing
Montage editing breaks free from the linear constraints of time and space, joining images that could not coexist simultaneously and thereby creating novel creativity. When applied in modern poetry, montage techniques often produce unexpected and striking images. Among Taiwanese poets, Luo Fu is the poet who has achieved the greatest success in using this expressive technique.
“Water Ginger Flower of Yesterday” / Luo Fu
When I first picked you
you suddenly rushed toward me with leaves and stem
naked in white
with the body fragrance of mint
if there were a third bank beyond both sides of the river
my outstretched arm would be
All lost songs cannot be compensated by echoes
at the edge of the water
you habitually bend down
struggling to piece together the ripples
gradually dispersing layer by layer
yesterday’s
reflection
“if there were a third bank beyond both sides of the river / my outstretched arm would be,” although this is an imagined statement, the added image of “my outstretched arm is the third bank” is quite intriguing. “at the edge of the water / you habitually bend down / struggling to piece together the ripples gradually dispersing layer by layer / yesterday’s reflection,” since it is the reflection of yesterday on the water, already dispersed by ripples, yet the poet insists on writing the character of the water ginger flower’s fixation on that reflection, allowing readers to feel a romantic and emotional sense of attachment.
“Female Ghost (II)” / Luo Fu
She
was lifted by a rope into
an extremely mournful and beautiful
Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio
Following the sound of the flute in search
every window may contain
her scholarly lover
who went to the capital for the imperial examination
unfaithful scholar
the wind comes silently
she darts into
a newly closed thread-bound book
A woman who hanged herself is a tragic image, yet the following image is cut into “an extremely mournful and beautiful / Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio,” which dilutes the reader’s sorrow and shifts attention to the elegant and sorrowful world of Strange Tales. “the wind comes silently / she darts into / a newly closed thread-bound book,” the action of darting into a thread-bound book is like a 3D special-effects shot; this can no longer be explained by hyperbole alone, but is a montage editing technique.
III. Surreal Performance
Surreal performance itself possesses an irrational absurdity, similar to a magician’s tricks. Yet such absurd images can be accepted by readers’ aesthetic experience because they provide interesting implied meanings; although “absurd and unreasonable,” they are “wonderfully lively.”
“Two Essays on West Lake: Bai Causeway” / Luo Fu
Was Bai Juyi a romanticist?
still under study
yet he indeed, overnight
for West Lake
painted a heart-stirring eyebrow
and hung birdsong, long and short
on the willow branches of four seasons
chirping for over a thousand years until it woke me
from my dream
breakfast is a window of clouds
plus a pot of bell sounds brewed with Tiger Spring water
so full it makes me burp
but walking on the causeway
I had another serving
of autumn wind left over by lotus leaves
“chirping for over a thousand years until it woke me / from my dream” uses temporal exaggeration. The following lines “breakfast is a window of clouds / plus a pot of bell sounds brewed with Tiger Spring water / so full it makes me burp / but walking on the causeway / I had another serving / of autumn wind left over by lotus leaves” present a cartoon-like absurd performance. The “I” in the poem is the sleeping Bai Causeway itself. Although readers may feel the imagery combination is not entirely logical, they can still appreciate and accept this kind of interesting surreal performance.
“Water Hyacinth Afternoon” / Luo Fu
Afternoon. In the pond water
are crowded clusters of pregnant water hyacinths
this summer is very lonely
if there is birth, then give birth to a pond full of frogs
Alas, the problem is
we are merely falsely bloated
The pregnant water hyacinths unexpectedly give birth to a pond full of frogs; this kind of absurd continuous sequence of images is not an exaggeration of objects, but already a surreal kind of speculative imagination. However, readers do not reject such strange and uncanny ideas; instead, they find them novel and interesting.
“Without Rain” / Luo Fu
Long clear skies without rain
this heart has long since cracked like dry earth
if you are a tear that gathers but does not fall
how much I wish
to become a fish in your eyes
“I am a fish swimming in your tears,” this of course is also a surreal imagination, but such surreal imagery gives readers an aesthetic feeling filled with deep emotion; readers do not need to reject imaginative perception with rational thinking.
“Entering the Mountain with the Sound of Rain Yet Not Seeing Rain”
Holding up a paper oil umbrella
singing of sour plums in March
among all the mountains
I am the only pair of straw sandals
Woodpecker—empty empty
echo—hollow hollow
a tree rotates upward in the pain of pecking
entering the mountain
not seeing rain
the umbrella circles around a green stone
there sits a man holding his head
watching cigarette ash flick into dust
going down the mountain
still not seeing rain
three bitter pine nuts
roll along the road signs all the way to my feet
reaching out to grasp them
they unexpectedly become a handful of bird sounds
“three bitter pine nuts / roll along the road signs all the way to my feet / reaching out to grasp them / they unexpectedly become a handful of bird sounds,” the three bitter pine nuts, when reached for and grasped, unexpectedly transform into a handful of bird sounds. This is equivalent to a magic-like scene; although it does not conform to rational logic, it carries a unique sense of novelty and creative interest.
“Midnight Peeling a Pear” / Luo Fu
cold and thirsty
I quietly gaze at
on the midnight tea table
a Korean pear
it is indeed a pear
with a touchably cold
bright brass-colored skin
a pear
split open with a knife
in its chest
it unexpectedly hides
a very deep, very deep well
trembling
thumb and index finger gently pinch
a small piece of pear flesh
white and innocent
the knife falls
I bend down to search
ah! the entire floor is covered
with my brass-colored skin
“Midnight Peeling a Pear” employs montage editing: “bright brass-colored skin / pear / split open with a knife / in its chest / it unexpectedly hides / a very deep, very deep well.” The pear core unexpectedly contains a deep well; this is a montage technique where two visual scenes are joined together. “the knife falls / I bend down to search / ah! the entire floor is covered / with my brass-colored skin”—what should have been the peeled yellow skin of the pear is, through illusion, subjectively forced into becoming the poet’s own brass-colored skin. If viewed through cinematic editing, this passage produces not only a montage-like suspense effect but also a magical illusion-like effect.
Conclusion:
Transformational combination, montage editing, and surreal performance—these three surreal expressive techniques, when applied in modern poetry creation, often produce extraordinarily refined visual effects, thereby bringing readers a refreshing aesthetic experience of imagination. In fact, if poets are willing to devote effort to rhetorical techniques, to refine their writing and develop creativity, and then appropriately incorporate these three categories of surreal expressive techniques, the author has reason to believe that your poetic works will not only refresh readers’ senses but also make them exclaim in admiration, because you have already trained yourself into a “language magician full of tricks.”
