Poetic Structure and Genre in the Tale of Kiều – Viewing Guide

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We have two presentations on the Tale of Kieu, considered “the national poem” of Vietnam. One, The Tale of Kiều, relates to the story of the poem and discusses it’s several sections. This guide refers to the other, Poetic Structure & Genre in the Tale of Kiều, which explains meter and rhyming in the poem

Vocabulary of Note

Poem – A form of literature that uses words arranged in different ways (poetic devices) such as rhyming, or metaphors or symbolism, to evoke emotions. Poetic forms vary all over the world.
Types of poetry (there are many, many types, here is a short list)
- Lyric – often musical, these poems focus on intense feelings and emotions
- Epic – long poems that tell a story, usually an adventure of an individual
- Sonnet – has 14 lines, with a rhyme scheme
- Haiku – a short form, originally Japanese, of 3 lines and 17 syllables: 5 in one line, then 7, then 5 again
- Verse – regulated language
- Free verse – no rules, no formal structure

Names of Note

Kiều – a young woman who is the protagonist of the story (Her full name is Thuy Kiều, with Thuy being her family name and Kieu, her given name: Thúy Kiều, pronounced Twee Kyew)
Nguyen Du – author of the Tale of Kieu (pronounced Win Zu)

Outline of Presentation – with [Timecode]

Introduction [00:15]

Lyric Poetry and a Narrative: what is the difference?
- A lyric poem has an image, and it gives a sensibility, an emotion – but there is no sense of time; it’s about a moment.
  Eg: Sunlight on the melting snow
- A narrative is a story: there are a few events that elapse over a period of time; feeling comes from the series of events over time.
  Eg: a short story with a few (or many) events over a period of time
- Stories/narratives that are in verse can be epic narrative poems, focused on legendary achievements such as The Iliad, The Odyssey, and Beowulf [04:00]

The Tale of Kieu is both a lyric and a narrative poem

POETRY	vs	NARRATIVE
Lyricism/moments		A story: events over time
Verse (most poetry)		A plot
Regulated verse		Prose – unregulated language
The Iliad (stories in verse)		The Trojan War: A New History
The Odyssey		The Wanderings of Odysseus
Tale of Kieu	AND	Tale of Kieu

The structure of the Tale of Kieu in 3 boxes [09:26]

1. Meter/ rhythm: a 6/8 meter [09:52]

A line of 6 syllables is followed by a line of 8 syllables

“Iambic” rhythm (the metrical pattern) = every other syllable is stressed or accented when you recite the poem (a common rhythm pattern in poetry, such as: “to BE or NOT to BE”).

A couplet is two lines: in this case, one 6 syllable line and one 8 syllable line [10:52]

You can evoke more feeling with structured poems than with prose“Anapestic” rhythm – where every third syllable is stressed like in the word “underSTAND”

2. Tonal Prosody (from Vietnamese tones) [10:07]

With tonal languages like Vietnamese (which has 6 tones) and Chinese (4 tones), all words have a tone, and in the poem, words are organized so there are patterns created using different toned words

Vietnamese tones are either level (gentle and flat) or oblique (sharper) [16:59]

In 6/8 meter, the order of those tones is regulated

Odd syllables are neutral (no tone)

Even numbered syllables are stressed, and alternate between level and oblique tones

So, the word tone pattern in a 6-syllable line is: 1.) Neutral/Level; Neutral/Oblique; Neutral/Level, 2.) There’s a sing-songy, musical feeling

3. Rhyming Scheme [19:31]

“Inter-linear” rhymes are connected

The 6th syllables of each line rhyme;

But in the 8-syllable line, the last syllable starts a new rhyme pattern that reappears in the 6th syllable of the next line, and so on (see below)

These features highlight the importance of hearing this type of poem, not reading it

Also, since the poems needed to be memorized, rhyming helped people remember

Interlinear Rhyming Pattern:

What happens when the Tale of Kieu is made in a poem? [25:06]

Tale of Kieu came from a Chinese novel and was made into a narrative poem in Vietnamese.
The story largely stayed the same, but the poetic structures described above (6/8 meter, tonal prosody, interlinear rhyming) allowed the author to highlight the feelings and emotion in the poem.
Like opera, it is storytelling, often of a well-known tale, and the emotional moments are accentuated and intensified – and that is what the audience is looking for: a string of emotional beads.