Laughing Lost in the Mountains: Poems of Wang Wei

by Wang

Overview

Wang Wei  was one of the most celebrated poets of China's Tang Dynasty (618-907). An influential painter and practitioner of Chan (Zen) Buddhism, many of his poems contain concise and evocative descriptions of nature whose elegant minimalism offers subtle expression of a transcendence from everyday life. While this purity of poetic expression is what Wang Wei's reputation is built upon, he lived a courtly life of highs and lows in a tumultuous era, suffering demotions and exile, imprisonment and rehabilitation, all of which are evidenced in his verse. Wang Wei's poems grapple with the trappings of worldly life and the quest for enlightenment, painting a complex picture of both his psyche and his Chan discipline. Laughing Lost in the Mountains includes translations of poems running the spectrum of Wang Wei's subjects, as well as an extensive introduction that sheds light on Wang Wei's craft, spirituality, and historical context.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781684581948
Publisher:	University Press of New England
Publication date:	06/27/2023
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	244
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

WILLIS BARNSTONE is Professor of Comparative Literature at Indiana University. Author of numerous books, including literary criticism and his own poetry, he has translated poetry from ancient Greek, Spanish, and Chinese. His books From This White Island (1960) and China Poems (1976) were each nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.

TONY BARNSTONE is a graduate student in English literature at the University of California, Berkeley. His translations from Chinese and Spanish have appeared in such publications as American Poetry Review and Nimrod.

XU HAIXIN is a prolific translator in both Chinese and English.

Table of Contents

Contents Acknowledgments Empty Mountain Nature and Vision The Old Man in the Mountain Deep Nature in the West and a Chinese Paysage of Symbols An Uneventful Life The Cult of Friendship The An Lushan Rebellion The Music of a Silence Taoism and Chan Buddhism La Musica Call ada of St. John of the Cross Poetics of Impersonality and a Personal Poet Wang Wei In China and Our Translation Translation: The Art of Possibility A Hermit In the Mountains My Cottage at Deep South Mountain Written in the Mountains in Early Autumn Deep South Mountain Sketching Things Living in the Mountain on an Autumn Night Climbing the City Tower North of the River From Dasan Pass, Going Through Shaggy Forests and Dense Bamboo, Climbing Paths Winding for Forty or Fifty Miles to Yellow Ox Peak Where I See Yellow Flower River Shining Written in My Garden in the Spring Autumn Night Sitting Alone, Thinking Of My Brother-in-Law Cui Drifting on the Lake Lodging at Master Dao Yi's Mountain Chamber Stone Gate Temple in the Blue Field Mountains From Ascetic Wang Wei to Hungry Zhang Yin Inspired by the Mountains Around Us I Write For Brother Cui Jizhong of Puyang Written on a Rainy Autumn Night After Pei Di's Visit Cooling Off A Picture of Mountain Life Writing on a Piece of Shale East River Moon About Old Age, in Answer to a Poem by Subprefect Zhang Answering the Poem Su Left in My Blue Field Mountain Country House, on Visiting and Finding Me Not Home The Wang River Sequence and Other Poems Grainy Apricot Wood Cottage At Lake Yi White Pebble Shoal Magnolia Basin Return to Wang River To Pei Di, While We Are Living Lazily at Wang River Living Lazily by the Wang River Leaving Wang River Estate Appreciating the Visit of a Few Friends at a Time When I Left My Official Post and Lived in My Wang River Estate Poems Written at Huangfu Vue's Cloud Valley Estate Lotus Flower Pier Duckweed Pond A Reluctant Official at the Emperor's Court To My Cousin Qiu, Military Supply Official On the Way to Morning Audience Spring Night at Bamboo Pavilion, Presenting a Poem To Subprefect Qian about His Staying for Good in Blue Field Mountains On Being Demoted and Sent Away to Qizhou For Zhang, Exiled inJingzhou, Once Advisor to the Emperor Goodbye to Wei, District Magistrate of Fang cheng, on His Way to Remote Chu Seeing Off Prefect Ji Mu as He Leaves Office and Goes East of the River Winter Night, Writing about My Emotion Written for He the Fourth in Return for a Country Cotton Wrap-Around Hat Saying Goodbye to a Friend Returning to the Mountains Saying Goodbye to Qui Wei Who Failed His Exam and Returns East of the Yangzi River The Emperor Commands a Poem Be Written and Sent to My Friend, the Prefect Wei Xi Saying Goodbye to Ji Mu Qian Who Failed His Exam and Is Going Home The Mountain Dwelling of Official Wei Looking into the Distance and Missing My Home at West Building with Official Wu Lang While I Was a Prisoner in Puti Monastery, Pei Di Came to Visit. He Told Me How the Rebels Forced the Court Musicians to Play at Frozen Emerald Pond. They Sang, and When I Heard This, My Tears Fell. Secretly I Composed These Verses and Gave Them to Pei Di. Ding Yu's Farm Visiting Jia's Chamber on Mount Tai Yi For Official Guo to Whom I Relate the Routine of My Life Upon Leaving Monk Wengu of the Mountains and Thoughts to My Younger Brother Jin Frontier Poems Saying Goodbye to Ping Danran, Overseer Song of Marching with the Army At the Frontier Watching the Hunt Seeing Prefect Liu Off to Anxi On Being an Envoy to the Frontier The Envoy at Yu Ling A Tang General Sallies into the Wilderness Beyond Mount Yanzhi to Battle Against the Barbarians Frontier Songs An Old General, on Long Mountain, Complains Missing Her Husband on an Autumn Night Departures and Separations Seeing Prefect Yang Off to Guozhou A Farewell Staying Only One Day at Zhengzhou Seeing a Friend About to Return to the South Thoughts from a Harbor on the Yellow River Missing the Loved One For Zu the Third Seeing Zhao Heng Off to Japan Morning, Sailing into Xinyang Weeping for Meng Haoran Arriving at Ba Gorge in the Morning Waiting for Official Qu Guangxi Who Doesn't Show Up For Scholar Xu Who Came to Visit Me and Found Me Away Sailing at Night beyond Jingkou Dike Night over the Huai River Night over the Huai River Rice Paddies and Pomegranates Countryside at Qi River Joy in the Countryside Saying Goodbye to Spring A Peasant Family Song of Peach Tree Spring Things in a Spring Garden Peasants on Wei River Sharp Landscape after the Storm Going Back to Song Mountain Walking into the Liang Countryside Welcoming the Goddess Saying Goodbye to the Goddess For Pei Di, Tenth Brother in His Family A White Turtle under a Waterfall A Visit to Our Village by Governor Zheng of Guozhou Spring Outing Caught in Rain on a Mountain Walk Portraits A Drunken Poet The Madman of Chu Lady Xi Song about Xi Shi Lady Ban An Old Farmer Dancing Woman, Cockfighter Husband, and the Impoverished Sage A Wealthy Woman ofLuoyang For Taoist Master Jiao in the East Mountains Meditating Beyond White Clouds Sitting Alone on an Autumn Night Visiting the Temple of Gathered Fragrance The Stillness of Meditation In a Monk's Room in Spring A Summer Day, Visiting Zen Master Cao at Green Dragon Monastery Visiting the Cloister of Meditation Master Fu For Official Yang Who Stayed at Night at Zither Terrace and in the Morning Climbed to the Pavilion of Storing Books and Then Quickly Wrote Me a Poem Message for a Monk at Chongfan Monastery To the Host in the Place of the Thousand Pagodas Visiting Li Ji Visiting Old Man Zhao in Jizhou and Having a Meal with Him Green Creek Seeing Taoist Fang Off to the Song Mountain Region For a Monk from Fufu Mountain I Offer This Poem While We Are Eating Dinner Visiting the Mountain Courtyard of the Distinguished Monk Tanxing at Enlightenment Monastery Visiting Li, a Mountain Man, and Writing This Poem on the Wall of His Home Winter Night, Facing the Snow, Thinking of the House of the Lay Buddhist Hu For Zhang Yin, a Friend like a Fifth Younger Brother, Here Is a Fantasy Poem In the Mountain Dwelling of Scholar Li Visiting Zen Master Xiao at His Song Mountain Chamber With My Friends at the Sutra-Reading Bamboo Garden of Advisor Shen the Fourteenth Where Young Shoots Abound Moaning about My White Hair Weeping for Ying Yao Questioning a Dream Visiting Official Lu While He Was Entertaining Monks and Writing a Poem Together Suffering from Heat Floating on the Han River Escaping with the Hermit Zhang Yin Notes to the Introduction Notes to the Poems Works Cited Bibliography

What People are Saying About This

Anthony Kerrigan

“The Barnstone translations read like poems in English, important poems, and consistently so. Through their illuminating study—the best examination of Wang Wei in English—and their translations, the Barnstones have established for our generation a new model of rendering a major Chinese poet in English. We have a world poet who at last has a consummate form in English.”