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Nostalgia In Tu Fu's Jade Flower Palace

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How would you feel standing in the remnants of the height of someone else’s life? Being able to view anyone’s accomplishments and failures holistically sits uneasily with many people because it brings a sweeping feeling of nostalgia. It is a feeling that everyone can resonate with, although few have truly experienced. The poem “Jade Flower Palace” by Tu Fu perfectly captures this unwanted feeling. Through Tu Fu’s use of diction, “Jade Flower Palace” conveys the somber idea that no matter how extravagant someone’s life may be, the memories fade where the legacy lingers. The raw tone implied in this poem is built by the language that Tu Fu uses such as “swirls, scurries, and shattered” (Tu Fu). With sharp and biting words, the author and the poem elicit a poignant response from the reader. While drifting through the ruins …show more content…

With the word whistle giving off the impression of a soft melody, and the word roar acting as the anchor of the phrase with its thundering implications, these words create an almost paradoxical situation. The two contrasting words establish an ominous atmosphere as well as giving off more abstract tones than usually found. In this single line of the poem, Tu Fu proves the point that silence can overwhelm someone just as much as clamor can by juxtaposing two contradictory words into the same idea. Tu Fu also uses diction to touch the reader’s emotions. There is not a single person that wants to think about dying only to become part of the earth, becoming nothing more than ash and dust, but “Jade Flower Palace” covers these thoughts head-on. By claiming that the opulence of the kingdom and it’s residents “are yellow dust” (Tu Fu, 11), the poem extracts strong impassioned ties from the reader. The bold verbs and adjectives like, “their painted cheeks have

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The speaker's strong word choice and use of metaphors help the reader truly understand how the poet feels in regards to the subject of unwanted nostalgia and yearning for the past. The poem's first line opens up with “longing for my days of naive youth will forever be a curse”. Here, the speaker is expressing how they are constantly looking back at how things used to be when they were just an innocent child who had no idea what life had in store for them in the future. They desire this feeling so constantly that they compare it to a curse that they are stuck with. The poem then references previous lines with “Climbing through the monkey bars of life faster than me, because now I sit in that circle silent as can be.

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