Ancient Literature in our Modern World

The poem that stood out to me the most was Du Fu’s “Moonlight Night”. The poem relates in many ways to a song by Shedaisy, called “Come Home Soon”. Both, the poem and the song are based on the concept of missing someone. In Du Fu’s “Moonlight Night” he is writing about his wife and how she missed him while he was being held captive in the capital of Chang’an during the An Lushan Rebellion, while Shedaisy’s, “ Come Home Soon”, is also about a woman missing her husband, only he is out at war. Although one was written from a male perspective and the other one from a female perspective, they have many similarities. One similarity for instance, is the language being used. Another similarity would be the way both the poem and the song has a change in mood from beginning to end. In the beginning, the subjects seem full of loneliness, anguish and worry. Contrary to the end of both the poem and the song, where they had more of an optimistic outlook.

In the beginning of “Moonlight Night”, Do Fu says:

From her room in Fuzhu tonight
All alone she watches the moon

Far away, I grieve that her children
cant understand why she thinks of Chang’an.

As you can see, Do Fu uses words such as alone and grieve to express his wife’s emotions of loneliness, anguish and worry. With words as such being used the poem speaks directly to the audience.

The same was done in the song. In “Come Home Soon”, Shedaisy says:

And I sleep alone
I cry alone
And it’s so hard livin’ here on my own
So please, come home soon

Shedaisy also uses words that speak directly to the audience. Words such as alone, hard and cry lead me to believe that she was also full of loneliness, anguish and worry as Do Fu’s wife was.

The end of both pieces depict a different outlook. Total opposite, in my opinion. Instead of depicting a negative outlook throughout the entire pieces, the authors switched up and ended both on more of a positive one.

“Moonlight Night” ended with:

When will we lean by chamber curtains
And let it light the two of us, our tear stains dried?

These two lines represent the change in mood from negative to positive. It leads me to believe that their is hope after the storm. He believes that he and his wife will meet again. By him asking when, he is being optimistic. He is hoping for the best.

Just as in “Moonlight Night”, Shedaisy depicts the same positive outlook toward the end of the song.

I still imagine your touch
Its beautiful missing somebody that much
But sometimes love needs a fighting chance
So I’ll wait my turn until its our turn to dance

These lyrics depict a positive outlook. Yes, she is lonely and missing her husband, but to her the “love” is worth it. Which is why she is willing to wait as long as need be until the day its they’re turn to dance.

As I menntioned before, although we are dealing with two totally different pieces, there are many similarities between them. Starting with the language and ending with the mood.