Hearing the Distant Temple Bell Toll: A Discussion of Bell Imagery in Taixu’s Poetry

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

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Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The author has conducted a comprehensive search of Taixu's (abbreviated as T in this review below) poetry, focusing on an essential poetic and Buddhist imagery, the bell, to provide a detailed account of how this imagery has helped Taixu express his Buddhist understanding and sentimentality. The paper is clearly written and has listed many helpful examples from Taixu's poems. The review will only suggest areas where the author can improve to make a now largely descriptive paper more argumentative. 

General issues:

1. The paper does not have a very clear overarching theoretical framework/ research question, other than demonstrating the use of bell-imagery in T's poems. Several questions that the author touches upon can be and should be developed into a more in-depth exploration. For example, What exactly bell-imagery in poetry has helped T to articulate and develop his Buddhist ideas? How T's Buddhist understanding made his use of bell-imagery unique and how is it different from using it as a conventional literary metaphor? How does his modern experience of bells (after the introduction of Western tools of timekeeping and the modern perception of time) makes him different from the pre-modern poets?
2. The paper needs to contextualize the poems the author quotes much better. Taixu's Buddhist and political activities are crucial for the readers to understand how poetic writing contributed to his career. It is also through such a lens that readers can learn we can understand the nuances of his poetry. 
3. If the paper is primarily a study of literary history, the author should exercise greater caution when making general statements (details are provided in the next section). When comparing T's poems with earlier examples, instead of simply stating that T was influenced by such and such, the author should conduct a careful close reading, comparing the subtle differences in literary technique, use of imagery, connotations, and contexts. 

Specific tandem comments:

1. Introduction: Taixu's political activities of Buddhist reformation should be at least briefly summarized.
2. l. 36, imagee should be imageries. There are many confusion between "image" and "imagery" throughout the paper, such as ll. 77, 261, etc. The author should run a "find" in Word to check.
3. l. 37~, It is necessary to differentiate between the bell of the Shang and Zhou dynasties and onwards, which were used for musical performance in rituals, and the Buddhist bells in monasteries. 
4. l. 49~, fn 7 it is overgeneralizing to say Li Bai is more Buddhist than Daoist.
5. l. 115~, the idea of Chan sudden enlightenment, passing of time, and long night meditation is quite dominant in the example. It is too simple to say that the night bell disturbs and the morning bell awakens. It should be considered with the author's section 4 (temporal dimension)
6. l. 145~, it is wrong to say that no poets used 送  with sound before. Just two examples from the Yuan lyrics: 李致远《朝天子·秋夜吟》:梵宫、晚钟。落日蝉声送。贯云石《殿前欢·隔帘听》隔帘听，几番风送卖花声。
   As a matter of fact, this paragraph (145-150) is not necessary.
7. l. 165-178: it is essential to quote more Buddhist texts, especially Taixu's own writing, (instead of sporadic quotations from Buddhist texts (and sometimes secondary research by modern and contemporary scholars) from various periods and traditions) to clearly show how sound plays a role in achieving purification. ll. 171,2, is not clear in terms of representing the status of purification.
   The author quotes Baizhang Huaihai's various sources. (S)he should introduce how T was infulenced by Baizhang Huaihai.
8. l. 181, 僧儀 does not refer to monk's rituals. 儀 means appearance, demeanor威儀，儀容.
9. ll. 201~, it is not convincing to say T was influenced by Tao Qian. Tao does not have the strong Chan Buddhist implication as Taixu had.
10. l. 261~ about 夜半鐘聲, the author does not make any point other than listign two poems that probably influenced T. A closer observation from literary and Buddhist standpoints should be made.
11. section 6.2, Moon is a very important Buddhist metaphor, especially in the Chan Buddhism since the Song dynasty. The author should consult more religious scholarship on this topic and elaborate on the Buddhist meanings of bell and moon together.
12. related to #11, the paper will benefit from merging sections 5 and 6 together and considering how different imageries were spatially arranged together to convery subtle Buddhist teachings. 

Back to a more general comment, the paper is not very clear whether the author wants to study the literary techniques or the Buddhist meanings of the bell imagery (ideally, both should be considered, but at least one). If literary, (s)he should show how T's poetic arrangement of the bell brings in new elements and how these changes speak to his situation. If religious, how bell imagery conveys the Buddhist meaning and how it aids his reformation of Buddhism. 

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

 

Hearing the Distant Temple Bell Toll: A Discussion of Bell Imagery in Taixu’s Poetry

Reviewer’s Comments

 

As indicated in the short responses above, the article is clearly written, persuasive, more or less free of any grammatical or mechanical issues (I saw none), and the translations  are well done.  The presence of both languages, I might add, make the article much richer than it would be if presented only in English. In short, the generally worthy of publication.

What I offer here are some suggestions for revisions, so of which are lower level, and easily addressed, some of which would require much more substantive revision.

Major issue:

• My principle issue with the article is that it seems to lack any real context. The author’s approach to time and place of the research subject is seemingly quite unsystematic, as though literature and philosophy (/religious ideas) exist in some sort of vacuum. The only meaningful orientation where time and place are concerned is one of “tradition” (embodied, for instance, in the work of Tang dynasty poets), and its impact on Taixu. I appreciate that the focus of the research is specifically on the aesthetic and philosophical aspects of the bell metaphor in Taixu’s poetry, but that poetry was composed in China in the early to mid-twentieth century, and some reference to that period would be helpful. Specifically, Taixu’s poetry was composed at a time which China’s literary establishment (along with all other Chinese establishments) were effectively dismantled and reconstructed according to a “modern” sensibility (May Fourth movement). Poetry itself, since the time of Hu Shi’s first “experiments” (notably published in 1916, the very same year as Meian shilu) was radically transformed, and for the most part, academic discussions of Chinese poetry after this time focus on writers in some way affected by these developments. To compose an article as though none of that ever happened is a bit odd. A kind of statement by way of omission. The problem is, I don’t quite understand what is being said by such a statement. It is of course clear that Taixu was not impacted by the Symbolists, the Crescent School, the Modernists, or any other poetry group of the first decades of the twentieth century, but his decision to remain outside of this should be at least noted.
• A related issue is the absence of any description, even briefly, of why Taixu is considered a modernizer in terms of Buddhism itself. I am frankly not familiar with the development of 20^th century Buddhism in China, and I can only assume that his poetry, bell imagery or otherwise, is completely unrelated to his ideas about how to modernize the faith in the context of China’s rather tumultuous 20^th century experience. But again, I am assuming, and as a reader, I’d rather not do that. There are snippets which seem they could relate to this (page 8, line 228-229, on Taixu and “mundane world”, or the idea of 入世, for instance), but none developed in any sustained fashion.

Medium issues:

• The article begins with a few references to previous research on the bell as part of material culture. This is not particularly clear in the text, and the footnote associated with it (#9) is especially confused. The citation is the material question research in question, the second so garbled it doesn’t make much sense. Regardless, it seems to me that no references within the text are needed, beyond a reference to the first article. The observation could simply be, the previous research is too narrow to be useful (and then further described in the footnote). That is unless I’m missing something important, in which case it should be more clearly explained in the body of the paper.
• The question of readership comes to mind when short descriptions of major figures, such as Tao Qian, are introduced. I think it is relatively safe to assume that Tao Yuanming (or Li Bai) are well known enough to skip introductions such as that. Meanwhile, when referencing major Buddhist texts, some time orientation would be nice. When were such works compiled, and by whom?
• A few of the readings seem to me to be a bit forced. The “clouds” symbolize the difficulty of transcending the mundane? An interesting idea, which could well be borne out by further textual study. Problem is, that isn’t provided here.
• The conclusion is really just a brief recap, and not very effective as such. I think the idea of purification and transcendence should be returned to in a more concretely. I also think these should be better developed at the beginning of the paper.

 

Small issues:

• The overall numbering of the article seems to me to be somewhat pointless (an attribute of much writing in Chinese scholarship, so I’m guessing this article was reworked from a Chinese original). I think actually removing all of those numerical dividers and inserting textual transitions would make the article stronger overall.
• Are these all complete poems? If not, should there not be ellipses?
• 15.484 should not be indented, near as I can tell.

 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The author has made the necessary changes to my previous review report and has added passages/sentences about the basic context of Taixu's poetic works. I understand that the paper is part of a bigger project; thus, the author does not include a more general context and framework in its current form. Overall, the paper will be helpful for readers of Taixu's religious and literary career, and makes a decent contribution to the field.