THE POETICS OF MOURNFUL LANGUAGE IN “AI TƯ VÃN”

Tóm tắt

This article examines Ai tư vãn by Princess Ngọc Hân through the lens of poetics, focusing on how its mournful language constructs a distinctive artistic voice in medieval Vietnamese literature. The study highlights three dimensions: symbolic vocabulary, artistic epithets, and the technique of defamiliarization. These linguistic strategies articulate solitude, longing, and irreparable loss, while also reflecting the impermanence of fate. Natural imagery such as the moon, wind, and flowers - traditionally symbols of harmony - is transformed into metaphors of estrangement and grief. Exclamatory particles, inverted syntax, and symbolic neologisms intensify the lament, mapping a psychological landscape of anguish. Situated within the ngâm khúc tradition, Ai tư vãn inherits the elegiac resonance of the song thất lục bát form but differs from Chinh phụ ngâm and Cung oán ngâm khúc through its direct, personal articulation of female grief. Unlike the ventriloquized female voices created by male authors, Ngọc Hân’s poem represents the authentic cry of a young widow who simultaneously voices private sorrow and civic responsibility. By integrating historical context with comparative poetics, the article situates Ai tư vãn alongside Chinh phụ ngâm to re-evaluate its literary value. The findings affirm its significance as a linguistic and artistic phenomenon, transforming individual mourning into a symbolic discourse of collective resonance.