How to Read Chinese Poetry: A Guided Anthology

Nature has always been an integral aspect of traditional Chinese poetry and poetics, beginning with the Shijing (The Book of Poetry). Yet natural imagery in early poetry is limited, often consisting of a few lines that indicate the setting or represent an analogy to the human situation in the poem. It was during the late fourth and early fifth centuries that distinct genres of nature poetry formed independently in the hands of two poets. The intellectual milieu of the early part of the Six Dynasties (222–589), which was dominated by xuanxue (abstruse learning), a philosophy and system of scholarship rooted in Daoist metaphysics, fostered this development. In this new learning, nature became both an important site and a source for conversations among the literati. In the context of this prevalent interest in neo-Daoist thought, the passive virtues of withdrawal and serenity were championed and subsequently bolstered the rise of nature poetry. Moreover, the massive southern migration after the fall of the Western Jin court to non-Chinese tribes during the early fourth century brought about a change of scene that was likely conducive to the development of nature poetry: once the émigrés had settled into their new environment, the magnificent and lush landscapes of the south offered stimulating sites for pleasure tours and material for poetry. Tao Qian (Tao Yuanming, 365?–427) developed what would later be known as tianyuan shi (farmstead poetry [literally, poetry of fields and gardens]) through the depiction of familiar and intimate rustic scenes, while Xie Lingyun (385–433) fashioned what would later be called shanshui shi (landscape poetry [literally, poetry of mountains and waters]) in his accounts of adventurous treks through beautiful and untamed mountainous regions. Differences in poetic material and style notwithstanding, both poets found nature—be it grand or domestic—a rich source for meditations on the cosmos as well as a way of life. In this chapter, I outline the early development and main features of farmstead and landscape poetry through an examination of their founding masters and their art.

THE FARMSTEAD POETRY OF TAO QIAN

Tao Qian’s simple, direct, yet elegant farmstead poetry has led over time to his being considered one of the greatest Chinese poets. Tao came from a minor elite family, which had lost most of its prestige and wealth by the time he was born. He took his first office relatively late in life (in his late twenties) and retired permanently about thirteen years later, most likely disillusioned by the political unrest of his era and wearied by the constraints of official life. This was no facile decision for a literatus schooled in Confucian ethics, since his withdrawal would mean renouncing aspirations to serve state and society, social respect, and stability of income. After retiring from his last post in 405, Tao spent the rest of his life as a farmer-recluse. He experienced both the joys of material self-sufficiency and the hardships of agrarian life. Tao’s life in reclusion, however, was not one of total deprivation or isolation. His love of wine was famous, and while he often drank alone, he was also a convivial drinker who frequently socialized with local officials and other members of the elite. During his lifetime, he acquired local fame as a recluse. It is in this period that most of his surviving works were composed.

Among the poetic subgenres represented in Tao’s extant corpus are poems written on official duty, social or exchange poems, poems on historical figures, and farmstead poems based on various meditations and events during his retirement, the last of which constitute the majority of his oeuvre. His farmstead works speak of the joys of rustic life, such as drinking wine, observing nature, playing the zither, reading books, and writing poetry for his own pleasure. And, although many of his later admirers often seem to forget this, he sometimes writes about the tedium of farm life, professing the toils of farmwork and trials of poverty, such as cold and hunger, which, in one instance, are memorably conveyed by these lines, which express the hope for the swift passage of time: “At dusk we would think of the cock crow, / At dawn we hoped the crow would cross quickly.”¹ Even in his plaints, however, one can still marvel at a tenacious gesture that punctuates many of his works: a reaffirmation of his resolve to remain in reclusion and a declaration of his integrity. But one may also argue that Tao was not consistently at perfect ease with his choice of reclusion, hence the need to frequently reaffirm his resolve.

Farmstead poetry as defined by Tao’s works and interpreted by most later practitioners of the genre (notably in the Tang dynasty) nonetheless typically focuses on the idyllic aspects of rustic life: leisure, calm, and freedom. Accordingly, simplicity and ease characterize its poetic style and diction. This genre is generally indissociable from the context of withdrawal from office (actual or fancied, permanent or temporary), as farmstead poems are born in rustic experience. I have selected four of Tao’s best-known works in the genre to illustrate the ways in which he represents rustic life and reflects on nature, reclusion, and himself.

The following poem is the first of a series of five, probably written shortly after Tao’s retirement from office. The mood is sanguine and the tone, celebratory:

C6.1

[TYMJJJ, 73]

The poem’s structure divides into three distinct parts, connected by familiar tropic markers. Lines 1–4 constitute a statement of the poet’s natural disposition and, implicitly, an explanation for his withdrawal from office. The poet’s innate love of nature and his perennial inability to get on with the world lead him to declare the last thirteen years (emended from “thirty”) in officialdom to have been a mistake.² A metaphoric couplet, serving as a bridge between the discursive opener and a series of descriptive couplets, reiterates the poet’s natural inclinations. Just like the caged bird and trapped fish, the poet longs for his native place. By some external intervention, these creatures became confined to a cage, a pond, or the dusty net (that is, official life). The image of displaced animals longing for home is a conventional trope dating from Han poetry about travelers (for example, C5.1), and its use here effectively “naturalizes” the poet’s desire to leave office and return to his farm.

The second part of the poem consists of an extended description of the material circumstances of the poet’s rustic life: from details about the size of his farm, the type of trees surrounding his home, to neighboring villages. This description vividly illustrates the value of the poet’s choice of lifestyle. Next, an allusive couplet (lines 15–16), lifted almost verbatim from a Han ancient-style poem and possibly referring to a passage in chapter 80 of the Dao de jing (Book of the Way and Its Power)—on the peaceful coexistence between neighboring communities that can hear, each in the other, dog barks and cock crows yet have no contact with each other—caps the idea developed in previous lines of a certain rustic tranquillity and harmony. The allusive nature of the couplet does not preclude it from being part of the perceived scene, in view of the descriptive couplets preceding it. Its philosophical point, however, is more remarkable and makes it an apt transition to the meditation in the final part of the poem.

The poem concludes with an affirmation of the freedom gained by withdrawal. The term ziran in the last line may refer to nature (supported by the descriptive couplets), one’s own nature (harking back to the first couplet), and/or freedom (by extension of the first two referents). This tripartite pattern (explanation of natural disposition, description of pastoral life, and affirmation of choice of lifestyle) was often borrowed by Tang writers of farmstead poetry, such as Wang Wei (701?–761) and Chu Guangxi (fl. 726), who likely found this logic of representation effective in vindicating an alternative way of life, reclusion.

Not all of Tao’s farmstead poems are structured in the same manner, but they consistently display a rhetorical simplicity that approaches oral language. The use of the reduplicative binomes (diezi) aiai and yiyi in the seventh couplet moreover draws on a certain archaic plainness and rhythm associated with the Shijing and Han ancient-style verse, in which such descriptive phrases are common. Reduplicative binomes are a standard feature of ancient speech; their use here heightens not only the archaic but also the colloquial effects of the poem. The copious use of parallelism, it should be noted, is unusual for Tao’s poems but typical in late Six Dynasties poetry; besides the first two and the last couplets, all are parallel, although lines 7–8, 11–12, and 13–14 are not perfectly so. Even in such instances in which technique is evident, the overall effect impresses the reader with a certain artless grace. The lack of craft in Tao’s farmstead poems blatantly opposed contemporary aesthetic taste, which prized artful refinement; his works were thus generally dismissed as the “words of a mere farmer.”³ Yet Tao seems to have found that simplicity and directness of expression accorded best with the basic, rustic life he portrays in his poems. Interestingly, the absence of apparent artifice in Tao’s compositions, once scorned by most, became centuries later one of his most admired trademarks. This attribute supported the interpretation of Tao’s poetry as ziran (natural or spontaneous) in the Song dynasty (960–1279) and onward, which in turn helped establish his inimitability; the significance of this conviction in the elevation of Tao to an absolute poetic model can hardly be overstated.

Images of rustic scenes constitute a significant part of Tao’s representation of his retirement, as in “Returning to Live on the Farm”; yet he is at times more concerned with conveying the feel of the rustic setting than the look of it. With the lines “In a haze lie the distant villages, / Indistinct is the smoke above the houses,” he gives the idea of a small rustic village without defining it in a visually precise way. Emphasis here is thus placed on yi zhong zhi jing (the scene within the mind).⁴ When Wang Wei reworks this couplet for one of his own farmstead poems centuries later,⁵ greater attention is given to the crafting of imagery, which not only defines to a great extent the poetic art of his era but also reveals a difference between Tao’s farmstead poetry and the High Tang (713–755) adaptation of it.

The rustic setting in Tao’s farmstead poems, built by recurring descriptions of such various props as agricultural fields, plants, and animals, provided the poet a space in which he could discourse on a philosophy of reclusion as well as observations on man and nature. No poem in Tao’s oeuvre is more abundant with such meditations than perhaps his most oft-cited poem on wine drinking:

C6.2

[TYMJJJ, 219–220]

The poet’s detached mind (set into relief by the location of his house amid civilization) renders possible the insight of the last couplet. That reclusion is less about physical place than a state of mind is perhaps Tao’s most powerful statement on reclusion. Receptivity to daily scenes in nature often taken for granted depends on the recluse’s state of mind. A detached mind is the precondition for the poet’s attention to details and the chance interplay of these details: he plucks chrysanthemums (often infused in wine for prolonging life) as he happens to catch sight of the southern mountain, symbol of longevity; and he notices the lovely air at dusk as he happens to see the homing birds. The sudden revelation named in the last couplet seems to have evoked a transcendent state of mind that is not merely impossible but undesirable to capture with words. Indeed, this couplet has remained so effective precisely for what it promises but does not say. The source of the last couplet is three passages in the Zhuangzi, either arguing for the incapacity of language for total expression or prizing meaning over its vehicle: words.⁶ Suggesting meaning beyond the words, a literary quality that became increasingly valued, points to the text’s possibility of perpetual signification and continual savoring.

The poet may be reticent, but the literary critic can nonetheless ponder on and say something about this insight in the last couplet. First of all, it involves the exquisite delight the poet finds in the commonplace activities of rustic living, such as plucking chrysanthemums and observing the mountain scene at dusk. Second, it may well be a recognition of correlations between the natural and human realms, whose intersections are often overlooked by men absorbed in the humdrum of mundane life. There are hidden significances in the natural world that either correspond to or are revealed by human actions: the birds’ natural instinct to return home corresponds to the poet’s return, which he presents elsewhere in his writings as his natural course; and as the poet picks chrysanthemums (a substance for prolonging life), he sees the southern mountain (a symbol of long life). Therein lies a truth that no amount of language can adequately convey. Third, it seems to mark a transcendent state in which a mystical union between nature and poet has taken place, and the distinction between object and self has been all but obliterated.

The most impressive couplet of the poem (and undoubtedly the most often quoted from Tao’s writings) is “Plucking chrysanthemums by the eastern hedge, / From afar I catch sight of the southern mountain.” The symbolic significance of the acts of picking chrysanthemums and seeing the southern mountain have been duly noted. While each act may be commonplace in the leisure of rustic life, their coincidence makes the scene poignantly poetic. What makes this couplet even more remarkable is its textual history: in certain Song editions of Tao’s works, wang (to gaze from afar) appears as a variant for jian (to catch sight of). The great Song critic and writer Su Shi (1037–1101) was the first to argue passionately against wang in favor of jian, positing the latter as key to the piece’s shenqi (inspired air). Indeed, for critics following Su Shi’s reading, wang denotes a certain intentionality that runs counter to the happy coincidence of jing (scene) and yi (idea), wherein lies, for Su, the marvelous subtlety of the couplet.⁷ More recently, critics have differentiated further between jian and xian (to appear; the line would then read: “At a distance the southern mountain appears”), reducing even further the subjective presence of the poet. It is possible that the late Qing critic Wang Guowei (1877–1927) had this reading in mind when he remarked that this couplet describes wu wo zhi jing (a selfless state), in which wu (object) and wo (self) cannot be differentiated from each other and “objects are seen through the perspective of objects” (yi wu guan wu). This state, more difficult to create in poetry than one in which the self is present (you wo zhi jing) and objects are seen through the perspective of the self (yi wo guan wu), is a testimony of excellence of spirit and skill, as Wang suggested.⁸

An intuitive engagement with nature occurs frequently in Tao’s farmstead poetry. In “On Drinking Wine, No. 7,” the poet ponders the beauty and significance of nature on an autumn dusk:

C6.3

[TYMJJJ, 224]

Natural phenomena and the poet’s activities are harmoniously integrated into an idyllic rustic scene. The correspondences between nature and the poet’s world can be described as follows: On a basic level, the poet takes in nature by ingesting chrysanthemum petals (infused in wine, or the “Care Forgetting Thing”). Nature provides him with what he needs. On a more meaningful level, the poet is in tune with nature. He whistles at home, while the birds sing as they return to their roosts. While chrysanthemums and homing birds are clearly part of the perceived scene, they also belong to a symbolic code in Tao’s writings. As the definitive flower of autumn, the chrysanthemum represents the year’s end and activities associated with it: most relevant here, meditation on one’s life and mortality. Also, homing birds are never just literally homing birds in Tao’s poetry; they are also a metaphor for the poet’s own returning.

The picture the poem draws may be idyllic (a recluse-poet enjoying the leisure of drinking and appreciating the autumn scene from his veranda), but the hint of disquiet in the second couplet threatens to disrupt the overall tranquil mood of the scene. The poet seems to admit to certain troublesome sentiments about leaving officialdom: the “lingering thoughts of the world” suggest a certain uneasiness or doubt. But this potential conflict is quickly resolved in the next two couplets: the poet is able to dispel his cares by enjoying wine in solitude and nature’s activities at dusk. This transformation paves the way for the remarkable sense of satisfaction in the last couplet. This contentment seems to be the result of having taken stock of all the wonderful aspects of rustic living: enjoying the beauty of natural phenomena, drinking wine to one’s content, living in idleness, and being in tune with nature’s activities. This gesture of reaffirming the choice of reclusion is no doubt familiar by now.

Wine drinking, a standard act in Tao’s poetic portrayals of farmstead life, warrants some explanation. Readers have long noted the copious references to drinking in Tao’s poems: The first known editor of Tao’s works, Xiao Tong (501–531), wrote that “there are those who have doubts about Tao Yuanming’s poetry, since wine is present in each poem.” Xiao then opined that “I, however, think that his true intentions do not lie in wine; rather, he made his mark through wine.”⁹ The notion of ji (trace) refers, in the Chinese cultural lexicon, to an outer manifestation of an inner sentiment that cannot be explicitly or directly expressed. Although regular wine drinking was rarely viewed pejoratively as a form of alcoholism by Chinese literati and had become a defining part of the elite culture of the Wei (220–265) and Jin (265–420) dynasties, Xiao Tong’s defense elevates Tao’s drinking to the level of an outlet for suppressed emotions, much like the use of wine associated with Ruan Ji (210–263), the silenced poet who made extensive use of allegory in his self-expressions.¹⁰ Wine bibbing in the preceding poem does not merely denote relaxed pleasure but also implies a reflection on failed personal ambition and/or the political state of affairs.

Farmstead poems arose from social interaction as well as from solitary reflection. A number of Tao’s farmstead poems refer to the company of family, friends, and neighbors. This should not be surprising, as reclusion was often a highly sociable practice during the Six Dynasties, being defined primarily in contradistinction to office holding rather than to society at large. In “On Moving House, No. 2,” the poet presents the more convivial side of rustic retirement:

C6.4

[TYMJJJ, 117]

While the location of Tao’s new residence, “South Town,” was debated by traditional scholars, who variously identified it as Lili (Chestnut Village), Nanli (South Village), or a place in Chaisang (modern Jiujiang in Jiangxi), the date of composition has generally been posited to be sometime after Tao’s house burned down in 408 (the dates of 410 and 412 have been suggested by scholars). The town appears to have been inhabited by “an unusual collection of recluses like Tao himself—literate, educated, but holding no public position and committed to making a livelihood out of farming. Not ordinary peasants, certainly, nor yet landlords with tenants to till the land for them,” as James R. Hightower has convincingly argued.¹¹ The depiction of rustic life here consists of writing poetry, drinking wine, keeping company with like-minded men, and occasionally farming. The last lines in the first poem of the set moreover relate that the poet and his neighbors read and discuss works from the past. Simple pleasures of rustic leisure become uncommon bliss when there are sympathetic friends to share them.

The slight amount of representation of actual farmwork in this poem is typical of the genre. Details of farming are rarely found in Tao’s poems. This poem begins by naming the two seasons crucial to agriculture and concludes by declaring the will to farm. But the lines in between tell mostly of the relationship between the poet and his neighbors, describing thoroughly their activities of leisure. The poem also focuses on the spontaneity and casualness that characterize their interaction, which imaginably opposes that governed by restraint and decorum among men in office.

In addition to a description of rural life, this poem contains two other common features of Tao’s farmstead poetry: a meditation on his way of life and a reaffirmation of his choice of withdrawal. The word li (translated as “way of life,” it literally means “principle”) in line 9 arguably refers to an insight into the way of rustic reclusion: finding delight in the simple yet rewarding aspects of rural life, a view that seems to be supported by others who share his ideals. This “principle” may also refer to an understanding of agriculture, as suggested by the last couplet of the poem: farming is not a lesser endeavor (which counters the attitude generally held by the Confucian elite), since material sustenance is fundamental to life, and honest labor will surely yield tangible rewards. The exhortation to farm in the last line translates to a reaffirmation of the poet’s choice of lifestyle.

Farmstead poetry, as developed by Tao and adapted by later writers, typically includes the following features: depictions of idyllic, rural scenes; a focus on the leisure and contentment of rustic life; the use of symbolic natural images; simple and direct expressions; as well as meditations on reclusion, the significance of nature’s workings, and their correspondence with the human realm. This genre languished for centuries after Tao’s death, attracting little interest from Six Dynasties poets; but during the Tang, many writers found the farmstead topos to be a fruitful medium for creating an idealized realm in which they could seek solace from the constraints of court life and from disappointments in public service. Their portrayals of farmstead life were generally trimmed of practical matters of self-sustenance and of the sense of unease and melancholy sometimes found in Tao’s works. Selections of Tao’s life and works became a rich source of poetic material for new examples of farmstead poems. Writing farmstead poetry became a vogue with High Tang poets, and the development of the genre reached its apex in their works.

THE LANDSCAPE POETRY OF XIE LINGYUN

Xie Lingyun, a scion of an illustrious aristocratic clan of the Six Dynasties, led a life of privilege and leisure. His official biography paints him as an outlandish and temperamental character. Unable to realize his political ambition and finding himself in exile from court in his prime, Xie turned toward an aesthetic engagement with nature and a spiritual quest for enlightenment. Xie has long been acknowledged as the originary model for Chinese landscape poetry. While he was by no means the first poet to use images of mountains and waters or to employ nature as a way to express his ideas and sentiments, he unequivocally established “mountains and waters” as a poetic subject in its own right. Unlike the sparse lines of natural imagery found in xuanyan shi (abstruse poetry), philosophical verse rooted in Daoist thought that was in vogue during the fourth century, extensive exposition of the natural scene in Xie’s works marks the birth of landscape poetry as a genre. In contrast to philosophical poetry, in which natural imagery serves predominantly as metaphors for ideas or the literal background for the figures or events in the poem, Xie’s landscape poetry contains elaborate descriptions of nature in which mountains and waters become objects of the aesthetic gaze. To be sure, Xie’s landscape poems are based on physical and intimate contact with the subject at hand. He toured the magnificent landscapes of Zhejiang with admirable enthusiasm, even designing a type of wooden clog for hiking up and down mountains.

One late Six Dynasties critic, Liu Xie (ca. 465–ca. 522), observed that during the early part of the Liu Song dynasty (420–479), “Laozi and Zhuangzi retreated into the background, while mountains and waters came to flourish.”¹² This influential statement refers to the replacement of abstruse poetry by landscape poetry as the dominant literary mode, and it has generally been interpreted to recount the vanishing of Daoist philosophy from poetry. While it is true that landscape poetry propounds more the aesthetic appraisal of natural scenes than a view of nature as mere metaphor for metaphysical notions, the modern scholar Wang Yao has argued that this shift in literary trend does not mark a transformation in poets’ ideas about life and the cosmos but signals a change in poetic material.¹³ Mountains and waters make ideal vehicles for the manifestation (or contemplation) of the Dao, or Way. Indeed, Xie’s landscape poems almost invariably conclude with some kind of philosophical meditation. Hence, Lao–Zhuang philosophy did not in fact retreat into the background but masqueraded itself in the guise of mountains and waters, as Wang has put it.¹⁴ Landscape poetry may nevertheless be distinguished from plain philosophical verse, characterized by the Six Dynasties critic Zhong Rong (ca. 469–518) as insipid and dicta-like, by its lush descriptions of mountains and waters and a certain emotive lyricism.

Xie’s landscape poems are laden with artfully crafted lines, strictly parallel couplets, obscure words, and literary allusions. Their erudition and denseness make them difficult to read in the original and unfortunate to read in translation. Yet there are great rewards for working through his verse: beautiful representations of natural landscapes that truly enliven his subject and profound insights into nature’s workings and their correlation to man. I discuss three of Xie’s best-known landscape poems to illustrate his aesthetic representation and understanding of nature. In “Climbing Yongjia’s Green Crag Mountain,” the poet describes in full a journey into a mountain in Yongjia (modern Zhejiang), where he held a post in exile in 422 and 423:

C6.5

[XLYJJZ, 56]

One fruitful approach to a difficult text is to analyze first its structure and identify the function of its components. Modern scholars have described the structural pattern of Xie’s landscape poems as journey narration, scene description, stirred emotion, and philosophical meditation. While this outline is not inaccurate, it omits a place in the sequence for allusions to the Yijing (Book of Changes), a recurrent source for citation in Xie’s works and an important key to understanding his poetic practice. For Xie, the Yijing imitates, corresponds to, or represents in microcosm the realm of heaven-and-earth. It is thus a handy guide to the ongoing processes in the realm of heaven-and-earth, the study of which may aid people in determining their actions. The relationship between the realms of heaven-and-earth and human society, with the Yijing as mediator, is often duplicated in Xie’s landscape poetry by the structural sequence of natural scenes, Yijing allusions, and a decision on a new course of action.

The allusions in lines 13 and 14 require some explanation. Line 13 alludes to the Top Yang of the hexagram Gu (Decay): “He does not serve kings and princes, / Sets himself higher goals.”¹⁵ Line 14 is drawn from the Second Yang of the hexagram Lü (Treading): “The path to tread on is level and smooth, and if one secluded here practices constancy, he will have good fortune.”¹⁶ The allusions to the Yijing, taken together, present a story of a man whose pursuits lie well beyond the fame and wealth that officialdom has to offer. Prospects of worldly success do not seduce this recluse, who constantly keeps to the level way, which has implications of both the Dao and a path that is free from dangerous obstacles. To particularize the significance of the allusions with regard to the poet’s situation, these lines may mean that by not allowing the affairs of government to shackle him, the poet enjoys the good fortune of visiting the gorgeous sites for which Yongjia is famous. They may also be interpreted allegorically as political criticism: the decadent Emperor Shao (r. 422–423) represents “‘Decay’ at the top,” while the exiled poet is the secluded man who assumes a position of secondary importance.

A comprehensive account of the poem’s structure divides it into five quatrains, each with a different focus. Lines 1–4 recount the entire process of ascent: preparation, the climb, and arrival at the peak. Lines 5–8 describe the winter scene that the poet witnesses from the summit. Lines 9–12 are characterized by confusion and obscurity, which apparently result from the poet’s deep venture into the mountains. Lines 13–16, containing two Yijing allusions, form a self-contained set. A chiasmus yields a tight, circular quatrain. Line 16 expands on the allusion in line 13, while line 15 elucidates the prognostication in line 14. Lines 17–20 reveal the poet’s new course of action, whose features, “all-embracing Unity” (bao yi) and the mending of one’s nature (shan xing), are markedly Daoist. The poet attempts to reconcile himself to his exile from court and plans to seek spiritual enlightenment.

It is by no means coincidental that the allusions to the Yijing are sandwiched between three quatrains that depict a natural landscape and the poet’s engagement within it and a quatrain that evidences a spiritual transformation. It is moreover significant that the two allusions appear between a state of obscurity (the third quatrain) and a state of clarity (the fifth quatrain). In this poem, the allusions to the Yijing signal not only change but also, more specifically, a transition from exterior to interior landscape, which implies the poet’s intention to establish a signifying relation between the particulars of the natural world and his own situation, and thus affirms the link between the realm of heaven-and earth and the realm of human affairs.

Xie’s landscape poems have long been appreciated for embodying philosophical principle (li) as well as exemplifying the art of xingsi (verisimilitude). His descriptive details in lines 5–8 capture the entire appearance of the landscape: from the gently rippling water to the glossy bamboo grove, and from the meandering stream to the extensive forest and dense mountain. The pairing of mountain and water in a single couplet is a staple feature of the landscape poetry of Xie and his followers. This alternation between mountain and water not only identifies the poetic subjects but also, more important, mimics the dense, layered arrangement of crags/ peaks and rivers/streams in nature. Poetic form again imitates natural form in the poet’s use of rhyming binomes, where the same final signals a continuity within variation, hence creating texture. The rhyming binomes dan lian (line 5) and tuan luan (line 6) auditorily convey a certain texture in the appearance of the rippling water and glossy bamboo. Difficult phrasing in this descriptive passage moreover underscores the nature of the mountainous terrain.

Xie’s landscape poems are typically rich in descriptive details of the natural scene. In some cases, an exposition of natural images is made even more interesting by a transformation in the poet’s perception of the landscape. An especially good example is “What I Observed as I Crossed the Lake on My Way from Southern Mountain to Northern Mountain”:

C6.6

[XLYJJZ, 118]

The basic story of the poem is straightforward and familiar enough: the poet tours the mountains and waters and describes what he sees and thinks. However, it is not altogether clear from which location and at what time of day the lines in the first half of the poem are written. The poem takes place sometime between dawn and dusk and somewhere between peak and shore. This ambivalence is aimed less at mystifying the picture than at providing a comprehensive representation that transcends time and space.

A look at the function of the allusions to the Yijing will shed some light on the development of the poem. The allusions in lines 11 and 12 refer to how cosmic operations (tiandao [literally, way of heaven]) reified in meteorological phenomena may bring about regeneration in the sphere of terrestrial processes (didao [literally, way of earth]). The poet demonstrates his understanding of this principle by representing springtime growth and activity in the lines following the question posed in line 11: “‘Releasing’ and making bring about what ends?” The allusions to the Yijing mark unequivocal changes in both the style and the perspective of the poem. The description of the landscape that precedes the allusions is written with a grand scope and robust style, while the descriptions that follow have a touch of subtlety and delicacy. The lines preceding the allusions (lines 1–10) contain sublime scenes of mountains and waters, in which the season is not discernible. They contrast with the scenes of minute springtime detail, such as the purple buds of new rushes and the green skin of early bamboo, which appear after the allusions. This difference in perspective coincides with yet another set of stylistic changes. In roughly the first half of the poem, we find the antithetical binaries of dawn and dusk, dark path and bright island, and trees below and torrents above. In the lines that follow the allusions, we note the complementary pairs of early bamboo and newborn rushes and springtime shore and mild wind. This shift from antithetical to complementary parallelism seems to correspond to an increase in intimacy between the poet and nature. The appearance of the Yijing allusions (lines 11–12) marks the beginning of the poet’s union with nature, which is revealed in his understanding and appreciation of its workings (lines 13–18). That the allusions appear immediately before the passage revealing the harmony between the poet and his natural surroundings, moreover, suggests that the Yijing serves as a catalyst to this union.

The poet’s engagement with nature is further specified in the last four lines of the poem. The absence of a like-minded companion may be a source of personal regret for the poet. But the possibility that the principles (li) recorded in the Yijing and manifested in the natural world might go unappreciated (in the sense of both admiring and grasping) is a concern that assumes precedence over individual want. The poet has made it his task not only to enjoy but also to probe into nature’s workings. For Xie, nature is not merely a source of sensuous pleasure but the embodiment of the Dao. The contemplation of natural landscapes may thus lead the viewer to enlightenment.

Certain formal features of the poem augment its semantic points. For example, each of the lines describing springtime growth and activity (lines 13–16) contains a shiyan (verse eye), a masterfully employed word (often a verb) that animates the entire line, hence providing a focal point (thematic table of contents 4.2). The characters bao (enwrap) and han (hold) imply a gentle hold that is appropriate to the handling of delicate new growth. The verbs xi (sport) and nong (play with) render the subjects dynamic: seagulls are not merely seeking food on the vernal shore, ascending and descending according to the tides carrying their bounty, but sporting with it; pheasants are not simply brushing the temperate wind, flapping their wings as if to take flight, but playing with it. It is little wonder that critics have long marveled at Xie’s use of verse eyes in his landscape poems, which ingeniously enliven the scenes described.

In addition to actual landscapes, symbolic ones in some cases may become the site for meditations on the way of life. In “Climbing the Lakeside Tower,” the binary of retirement versus service underlies the entire poem:

C6.7

[XLYJJZ, 63–64]

This poem contains two types of landscape: a symbolic one of lines 1–6 and a perceived one of lines 11–16. In the first part of the poem, the poet reflects on the issue of service versus withdrawal, without apparent resolution. This introspection is soon replaced by outward observation of the early-spring scene. The poet’s engagement with nature brings about new reflections and a resolution. Lines 17–20 reveal the uneasy feelings of the poet regarding his exile from court. The poet is grieved by the song of Bin (Shijing, Mao no. 154), in which a girl longs to find a mate and go home with him, just as Xie longs to return home; he is also moved by the song of Chu that summons the recluse from the mountains. Although the poet admits the difficulty of steadying the mind in seclusion, he finally decides to maintain his principle and embrace quietude.

Three allusions to the Yijing develop the main theme of the poem. These allusions do not occupy a pivotal position in the poem, bridging the passage from natural scenes to inner transformation, as in “Climbing Yongjia’s Green Crag Mountain,” or preceding a transformed landscape and subsequent inner meditations, as in “What I Observed as I Crossed the Lake.” Rather, they are employed to set up and answer the dilemma of retirement versus service. Line 1 of the poem alludes to the First Yang of the hexagram Qian (Pure Yang): “A submerged dragon does not act.”¹⁸ This statement applies to the superior man who has yet to reveal his virtue and capabilities. Line 2 calls to mind the hexagram Jian (Gradual Progress), whose six statements outline the gradual advancement of the wild goose, from shore to highland to hill.¹⁹ This ascension parallels the rise of the superior man.²⁰ The juxtaposition of retired life and successful career in lines 1 and 2 sets up a pattern of binary oppositions within the next four lines. In lines 3 and 5, the poet addresses the allusion to the flying goose by stating that he has failed in court life. Lines 4 and 6 hark back to the allusion of the submerged dragon as the poet admits that he has also not succeeded in retirement. The first two allusions resonate through the poem’s first six lines and help build a microstructure for the first three couplets: images, significations of the images, and the application of the images to the poet’s own situation.

The allusions in the first couplet work additionally with the poem’s last line to give the poem a closed, circular structure. The last line alludes to the following comments in the Yijing, which explain the passage to which line 1 refers: “‘A submerged dragon does not act.’ What does this mean? The Master says: ‘This refers to one who has a dragon’s virtue yet remains hidden. He neither changes to suit the world nor seeks fulfillment in fame. He hides from the world but does not regret it, and though this fails to win approval, he is not sad [wu men].’”²¹ The poet’s comparison of the hidden dragon whose virtue is out of tune with the world to his own plight is as much a final consolation as an affirmation of his decision to withdraw, if only temporarily. By reinforcing the first line of the poem, the last line offsets the perfect balance between retirement and officialdom introduced in lines 1–6 and developed throughout the poem: the observation of spring scenes while in retirement in lines 11–16 and the lamentation of frustrated ambition in lines 17–20.

The presentation of the natural scene in lines 11–16 contains a number of distinguishing formal features of Xie’s landscape poetry. The familiar pairing of mountains and waters combines with a pairing of sight and sound: the poet listens and observes a scene containing both water and mountain, which suggests a comprehensive engagement with nature. His perception of the mountains in line 12 is conveyed both visually and auditorily: the use of the characters qu and qin, which have the same radical, shan, creates a visual continuity with variation, resembling a mountain ridge. The alliteration of qu and qin presents variation within similarity, suggesting a notable texture or unevenness, as in a mountain range. Remarkably, the elements of opposition and variation in these lines are smoothly integrated into a coherent visual sequence: attention proceeds from the distant seas, the nearer mountains, to the pond and trees next to the tower.

The most interesting couplet in this poem (and the most often quoted of Xie’s oeuvre) is: “The pond’s banks grow spring grasses, / And garden willows have transformed the singing birds.” These lines brilliantly convey the look and feel of spring: the pond’s banks give birth to spring grasses, while the willows in their vernal look transform the attitude of the birds that sing there. This couplet, with an apparently disarming simplicity, appears refreshingly spontaneous in a poem laden with symbols, allusions, alliteration, and complex phrases. The popular story about its origin would support the view that an impression of natural beauty is the object of the couplet: Xie dozed off after having worked for days on the lines of his poem. He then dreamed of his cousin Xie Huilian (397–433), also a famous poet, and awoke with these two lines, later crediting them to divine inspiration rather than to his own language. This is only a tale, but it reveals an admiration for spontaneity (even in artful lines) rather than obvious effort in Chinese aesthetics. The spontaneous nature of the couplet is wonderfully problematized by its compressed syntax, which yields a certain ambiguity to its meaning. My translation merely offers the neatest interpretation, but the couplet has also been rendered as, “Upon the pool, spring grass is growing, / The garden willows have changed into singing birds.”²² In this interpretation, the garden willows seem to have turned into singing birds, which populate the trees and fill them with sound. Xie may well have had this poetic image in mind, but one wonders about the replacement of willows by birds, which causes the former to disappear from the picture and privileges the aural over the visual. This spring scene surely needs the copresence of birds and willows. This translation moreover ignores the lines’ parallel relationship. The relationship among the components in each line (the subjects, verbs, and objects they act on) is usually assumed to be parallel in a parallel couplet. Yet another translation, more mindful of their parallel relationship, reads: “The pond is growing into springtime plants / Garden willows have turned into singing birds.”²³ The interpretation of sheng as “grow into” stretches the semantic range of the word even more than a reading of bian as “turn into”; hence, this translation was explicitly presented as a poetic reading of the lines. The poeticalness of this couplet, however, derives less from an unusual usage of verbs than their ingenious choice and part in the syntactic composition. As verse eyes, the two verbs not only animate their lines but play with signs of the season (pond, grasses, trees, and birds) in a way that truly captures the mood of early spring. Although earlier readers have been fond of commenting on the apparent simplicity of these lines, what has continued to captivate readers is their surprising ambiguity.

Xie’s landscape poetry is marked by certain formal characteristics, such as verisimilar description, abundant use of allusions, animating verse eyes, and difficult phrasing, and by a conceptual feature, the poet’s contemplative engagement with a signifying nature. His extensive use of the Yijing is part of both his reading and his representation of nature. Later writers in the genre, which was popular in the Six Dynasties and peaked during the Tang, did not necessarily adopt Xie’s stylistic form and conceptual framework in their entirety, adapting the genre according to their individual styles. But vivid descriptions of the landscape and meditations on nature, its workings, and their relevance to one’s view of life remain constant markers of the genre. The culmination of the development of landscape poetry coincided with that of farmstead poetry during the High Tang, whose poets, in exploring the basic spirit shared by the two traditions—a return to nature and simplicity—brought the two genres into close affiliation by synthesizing aspects of both Tao and Xie in their examples of nature poetry.

Wendy Swartz

NOTES

1. Tao Qian, “A Lament in the Chu Mode: To Show to Recorder Pang and Scribe Deng,” in Tao Yuanming ji jiaojian (The Works of Tao Yuanmngi [TaoQian], with Collations and Notes), ed. Gong Bin (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1999), 98.

2. Most modern scholars have emended the text to read “thirteen years” (shisan nian), which is based on the traditional belief that Tao entered officialdom in 393 and retired in 405. Some scholars prefer to keep “thirty years” (sanshi nian), as it indicates the span of time covering Tao’s preparation for and tenure in office, from the age of ten to forty.

3. The late Six Dynasties critic Zhong Rong cites this contemporary assessment in the entry on Tao Qian in Shipin jizhu (Collected Annotations of the “Grading of Poets”), ed. Cao Xu (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1994), 260.

4. Ge Xiaoyin, Shanshui tianyuan shipai yanjiu (Research on Schools of Landscape and Farmstead Poetry) (Shenyang: Liaoning daxue chubanshe, 1993), 80.

5. Wang Wei’s “At My Wang River Retreat, Presented to Candidate Pei Di,” contains the following couplet: “At the ford lingers the setting sun, / From the small village rises one wisp of smoke” (Quan Tang shi [Complete Shi Poetry of the Tang] [Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1960], 126.1266). The visual dynamics created by the downward and upward movements of the setting sun and the rising smoke against the horizontal planes of the river and the village indicate a concern with the balance of forms that is an unmistakable mark of Wang Wei’s craftsmanship.

6. These three passages are (1) “The Great Way is not named; Great Discriminations are not spoken” (“Discussion on Making All Things Equal”); (2) “Those who know do not speak; those who speak do not know. Therefore the sage practices the teaching that has no words” (“Knowledge Wandered North”); and (3) “Zhuangzi says, ‘Words exist because of meaning; once you’ve gotten the meaning, you can forget the words’” (“External Things”) (The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu, trans. Burton Watson [New York: Columbia University Press, 1968], 44, 235, 302).

7. Su Shi, “Ti Yuanming ‘Yinjiu shi’ hou” (On Yuanming’s “Poems on Drinking Wine”), in Su Shi wenji (The Collected Prose of Su Shi) (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1986), 67.2092.

8. Wang Guowei, Renjian cihua, Renjian ci zhuping (“Remarks on Lyrics in the Human World, Lyrics in the Human World,” Annotated and Evaluated), ed. Chen Hongxiang (Nanjing: Jiangsu guji chubanshe, 2002), 7.

9. Xiao Tong, “TaoYuanming ji xu” (Preface to the Collected Works of Tao Yuanming), in Quan Liang wen (Complete Liang Prose), in Quan Shanggu Sandai Qin Han Sanguo Liuchao wen (Complete Prose of the Three Ancient Dynasties, Qin, Han, Three Kingdoms, and Six Dynasties) (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1958), 20.3067a.

10. According to Wang Yao, by the Wei dynasty drinking had become a means for the gentry to escape from cruel political reality (Zhonggu wenxueshi lun [Essays on Medieval Literary History] [Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshe, 1998], 172–180). The transition from the Wei to the Jin was marked by great instability, during which expressions of opinion or position were terribly unsafe. Drinking and drunkenness were used most notably by the Seven Worthies of the Bamboo Grove as a defensive guise, as well as anesthesia for their sorrow over the contemporary state of affairs.

11. The Poetry of T’ao Ch’ien, trans. James R. Hightower (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970), 75.

12. Liu Xie, Wenxin diaolong zhu shi (“The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons,” Annotated and Explicated), ed. Zhou Zhenfu (Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 1998), 49.

13. Wang Yao, Zhonggu wenxueshi lun, 271.

14. Wang Yao, Zhonggu wenxueshi lun, 272.

15. Richard Wilhelm and Cary F. Baynes, trans., The I Ching, or Book of Changes, Bollingen Series 19 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1967), 78. “Top Yang” refers to a solid (yang—) line at the top of the hexagram, which is composed of six solid and/or broken (yin --) lines.

16. Richard John Lynn, trans., The Classic of Changes: A New Translation of the I Ching as Interpreted by Wang Bi (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994), 201.

17. I have interpreted this line with the Song variant for fan (to return), ji (to arrive at), in mind. Scholars generally do not alter the text, but note that ji makes more sense inasmuch as Xie was a native of Guiji, not Yongjia Commandery, where the poem was composed.

18. Lynn, Classic of Changes, 132. “First Yang” refers to a solid (yang—) line at the bottom of the hexagram.

19. Wilhelm and Baynes, I Ching, 208.

20. Lynn, Classic of Changes, 473–477.

21. Lynn, Classic of Changes, 132.

22. J. D. Frodsham, The Murmuring Stream: The Life and Works of the Chinese Nature Poet Hsieh Ling-yün (385–433), Duke of K’ang-Lo (Kuala Lumpur: University of Malaya Press, 1967), 1:121.

23. Francis Westbrook, “Landscape Transformation in the Poetry of Hsieh Ling-yün,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 100, no. 3 (1980): 243.