One critic of Chinese poetry has written, suggestively: “Western readers are sometimes struck by what they do not find …”. One of the most familiar constituents of poetry, particularly of the lyric, that will not be found in much of Chinese nature poetry is an identifiable grammatical subject. It is not uncommon for a translator of Chinese poetry to ask “… who is its subject? I? You? She?” The requirements of the translation into Western languages suggest, of course, that a subject be supplied. Caught between syntactical correctness and the authority of the text, the translator is often forced to opt for fluency in the target language rather than fidelity to the source language. To be sure, this practice is of no great consequence in most instances. But, if we look at two excerpts, one from the Li Sao and the other from the T'ang shih san pai shou, and compare both text and translation, it becomes clear that there will be times when something other than mere linguistic convention is involved.

For many reasons, including the importance of local geographic variation, twentieth century Chinese phenomena such as “warlordism” must be examined in individual sub-national cases. Szechwanese provincial militarists maintained a high degree of independence from outside control and stood aloof from central government politics from the end of the Northern Expedition until 1935. However, a combination of communist military pressure and provincial economic collapse finally induced Szechwan's leading militarist to seek Nanking's help. From early 1935, the National Government attempted to bring Szechwan within its sphere of military, economic, and political influence. In its struggle with entrenched provincial militarists, Nanking employed a complex set of reforms, at the heart of which were measures for the restricting of local administration and the extension of formal administrative control into local society. When the Sino-Japanese War Erupted in July 1937, however, Nanking had achieved only very partial success. The Nationalists' final peacetime opportunity to solve the modern dilemma of central vs. sub-national power in China had passed.