Peculiarities of the Text Composition of a Mu Dan’s Sequence “Eight Poems”

This article discusses a Mu Dan's sequence “Eight poems”, written by an outstanding Chinese poet and translator of the 20th century. The poet's works are being actively studied in China and around the world. It is the first attempt in Ukrainian sinology to demonstrate the singularity of the poetic world by an example of the sequence “Eight poems”, one of the best poems in Chinese poetry of the 20th century about love (Wang Zuoliang). To fully understand the subject of discussion the article provides a complete translation of the sequence into the Russian language, made by the author of this work specifically for this article. After a brief description of the poet's life, an overview of some Chinese scholars and poets' statements about “Eight poems” is given. In addition, the article raises the subject of the European avant-garde's influence on the poet's works and the subject of the continuity of the classical Chinese thought in his sequence “Eight poems,” in which discoveries and revelations of both European and Chinese classical literature are magically intertwined. The article suggests the author's commentary and view on text composition of the sequence “Eight poems” from the perspective of construction of the eight trigrams in the classic Chinese “Book of Changes”, which clarifies the poetic idea of the poems. Using the example of the text composition of the eight poems in comparison with the chain of trigrams, the general driving force for the feeling development is shown, which can be considered as a certain versatile composition or structure of an event. Such an approach to commenting on works of Chinese literature is new to the modern scientific world. However, it may be very promising in the coming years.