This is the mysticism I'm talking about. You're literally arguing that the meaning behind the poem comes from the shape of the characters themselves. You have t

This is the mysticism I'm talking about. You're literally arguing that the meaning behind the poem comes from the shape of the characters themselves. You have the common sentiment amongst westerners that Chinese writing isn't actually writing but are merely "signs" as you put it. It is true that most writing systems (the latin script included) originated as pictographs, but just as nobody compares the letter "A" to an Ox in the analysis of English poetry, no serious analysis of Chinese poetry involves looking at the shape of the characters themselves. You do realize that the shape of the characters themselves change drastically over time right? Go to the "字源字形" section of 望's dictionary entry here for an example:[0] > which implies to me that the deeper sense is encoded in the signs themselves. That is not at all what GP is implying, GP cites John DeFrancis, who is the opinion that the Chinese script is actually a (imperfect) phonetic script because he believes all scripts are phonetic. The bulk of GP's argument is also about the grammar of the Chinese language, which was what I was arguing against in my comment. [0] https://zdic.net/hans/%E6%9C%9B https://zdic.net/hans/%E6%9C%9B