In 733 he returned to Xi’an. Now his acquaintance with Zhang Jiuling paid off, for this powerful and highly ethical man sponsored his reentry into politics. In 734 Emperor Xuan Zong appointed him “reminder on the right” (you-shi-yi). True to his Confucian ideal, Wang Wei was in public service once again, thus ending his first stage of poetic development.

As reminder on the right, Wang Wei reminded the emperor of overlooked or forgotten matters. Such a position required much tact and subtle diplomacy; apparently Wang Wei was equal to it, for he maintained his position and continued to advance. Nevertheless, he found Xuan Zong’s new ministry dangerous. Although the triumvirate included Zhang Jiuling and Pei Yaojing, the third member was the ambitious Li Linfu. Zhang Jiuling and Pei Yaojing had both risen to positions of power through the examination system; they were literati. Li Linfu, however, was an aristocrat and a member of the imperial clan that supported hereditary privilege: Conflict was inevitable. When Zhang Jiuling was banished and Pei Yaojing demoted in 737, Wang Wei also was in danger. Nevertheless, he survived, although he temporarily became investigating censor (jiancha yushi) of Hexi, a post on the northwest frontier in the province of Liangzhou (modern Gansu). Here he assisted the military governor, Ts’ui Hsi-i, from 737 until 738, when Cui’s forces were defeated by the Tibetans and the general was killed. Although not technically an exile, Wang Wei’s frontier assignment gave Li Linfu time to consolidate his power without undue interference. He became a virtual dictator when the elderly emperor, preoccupied with his consort, Yang Guifei, began to allow him a free hand in public affairs.

When Wang Wei returned to Xi’an in 738, he was promoted to palace censor (dianzhong shiyu shi). In 740 he was sent to the south to supervise the provincial examinations, returning to the capital and continuing his steady advancement. At about this time, he seems to have acquired his famous Wangchuan estate, which was located in the foothills of the Zhongnan Mountains, some thirty miles south of Xi’an; the estate was to prove important to his life and to his painting and poetry. About 750 his mother died, and he withdrew from court for the customary period of mourning, a little more than two years. Upon his return to Xi’an in 752, Wang Wei was appointed secretary of the civil office (lilu langzhong), which obliged him to nominate, examine, and evaluate civil officials. In 754 he became grand secretary of the imperial chancellery (jishizhong), which represented a more prestigious rank. The following year, however, any further advance was abruptly curtailed by the onslaught of the An Lushan rebellion, which dispersed the entire court.

The years from 734 to 755 may be considered Wang Wei’s middle period, his most productive and significant literary period. It includes his poem written to Zhang Jiuling after the latter’s exile to Hsing-chou in 739 and the frontier poems inspired by his military experience at Hexi. There are also such outstanding court poems as “Tseng ts’ung ti szū k’u yüan wai Ch’iu” (“Given to My Paternal Cousin, Military Supply Officer Qiu”), “Fêng ho shêng chih chung-yang-chieh tsai ch’en chi ch’un ch’en shang shou ying chih” (“Written at Imperial Command to Harmonize with His Majesty’s Poem, ‘On the Double Ninth Festival the Ministers and Assembled Officials Offer Their Wishes for Longevity’”), and “Ta-t’ung tien shêng yü chih Lung Ch;’ih shang yu ch’ing yün; pai kuan kung tu; shêng en pien szu yen yüeh kan shu chi” (“At Datong Hall a Jade Iris Grew, and There Were Auspicious Clouds by Dragon Pond; the Hundred Officials Observed [These Phenomena] Together; Imperial Kindness Bestowed a Banquet with Music, so I Dared to Write on This Occasion”). The first court poem expresses Wang Wei’s desire to withdraw from politics and celebrates the peace and serenity of reclusion. The latter two, however, celebrate imperial power. Finally, this period includes many fine Buddhist and nature poems, the latter often showing Daoist influences.

During the 740’s and early 750’s, Wang Wei apparently spent much of his time on his Wangzhuan estate. It is evident that he enjoyed this place immensely. His best-known companion was his friend Pei Di, a minor poet and official, who shared in the composition of the masterly “Wang-ch’uan chi” (“Wang River Collection”). Together they treated a series of topics whose order was determined simply by the geographical layout of the landscape. Wang Wei’s continuous scroll on which he depicted the same twenty landscapes is no longer extant, but copies of it give a viewer some sense of what he must have done.

When Li Linfu died in 752, he had been replaced by Yan Guozhong, who although a man of little merit was the brother of the emperor’s consort, Yang Guifei. When the frontier general An Lushan rebelled in 755 and attempted to overthrow the emperor, Xuan Zong was caught unprepared. Fearing an attack on Xi’an, he and his court fled at night to Sichuan. Some officials, however, remained behind, including Wang Wei.

Having almost immediately occupied Luoyang, the rebels then attacked Xi’an. Wang Wei attempted to join the emperor but was captured by the rebels. Although he pretended physical disability in an effort to escape having to serve the rebel government, he did not succeed and faced execution. Because An Lushan had been previously impressed with his abilities, however, he was imprisoned instead in the Pudi Monastery. Later he was compelled to collaborate with the rebel government.

Meanwhile, when Xuan Zong learned that his son had fled to Shaanxi in northwest China, he abdicated. His son proclaimed himself Emperor Suzong and organized Uighur forces to help him overcome the rebels. After An Lushan was killed and Xi’an was recaptured toward the end of 757, the new emperor and his court returned to the capital.

Debate now raged on what to do with the collaborators. Two of the emperor’s ministers urged that they be killed; a third, Li Xian, argued that the instability of the military and political situation demanded selective clemency. Most of the collaborators were punished by death, flogging, or banishment. Because of his brother’s intercession and of a poem he had written from the monastery during the rebel occupation, however, Wang Wei was pardoned by the emperor. Wang Wei was then reinstated in the official ranks as vice president of the grand secretariat of the crown prince (taizi zhongyun) and later became its president. After again serving briefly as grand secretary of the imperial chancellery (jishizhong), in 759 he was advanced to the highest position he ever attained, that of assistant secretary of state on the right (shung-shu yu-ch’êng).

Despite this honor, it appears that toward the end of his life Wang Wei became disheartened and increasingly inactive. He seldom stayed at his Wangzhuan estate but lived mostly just outside the capital. He wrote no more nature poems and on returning home from work spent his leisure hours reading Buddhist sutras. Lonely, old, weak, and with poor eyesight, he petitioned the emperor to recall his brother, Wang Jin, to court so the two could be near each other. The emperor did so, and Wang Jin was appointed grand counselor of the emperor on the left (zuosan jichang shi). Wang Wei wrote a memorial thanking the emperor for his kindness; it is dated the fourth day of the fifth month of 761. Wang Wei died in the same year and was buried on his Wangzhuan estate.

Wang Jin survived Wang Wei to become a chief minister under the next emperor. The new emperor, who was fond of poetry, asked Wang Jin if enough of Wang Wei’s poems had survived to make a collection for presentation to the throne. The poems that were extant, out of the several thousand written, were gathered together by Wang Jin and presented to the emperor in 763.

The years 756-761 may be considered Wang Wei’s late period. The poems written during this time reflect his loneliness, his struggles with the infirmities of old age, and his growing awareness of death. In 756, as a prisoner of the rebels in the Pudi Monastery, awaiting a doubtful fate, Wang Wei was surprised by a visit from his friend Pei Di, who somehow had managed to slip into the monastery. Pei Di brought news of the outside world, especially about the behavior of the Pear Garden musicians when forced to celebrate the rebel victory. This event inspired Wang Wei to write a poem. Shortly thereafter, he addressed a poem directly to Pei Di. These two poems, as Professor Yu observes, “typify Wang Wei’s ability to identify with both the committed official and the escapist recluse.” At the time he wrote the poem about the Pear Garden musicians, Wang Wei could not have dreamed that it would play an important part in his rehabilitation and restoration, resulting in a pardon from the emperor and in his return to office.

Wang Wei’s gratitude for the emperor’s clemency is shown by his poem “Chi mêng yu-tsui hsüan fu fei kung fu kan shêng ên ch’ieh shu pi i chien fêng chien hsin hsü shih chün-têng chu-kung” (“Having Received Pardon for My Offense and Been Returned to Office, Humbly Moved by Imperial Kindness, I Write My Lowly Thoughts and Present Them to My Superiors”). Written in 758, the poem celebrates a return to the old order of stability and brilliance and predicts an even more glorious reign.

Summary

Wang Wei was the most prominent poet of his time. He knew the rigorous conventions of the court poetry of the Early Tang, but he reacted against them and made his own way, becoming the premier capital poet, one who could hew to the rules and then go beyond them. Nevertheless, for centuries he has been best known as a nature poet. Indeed, he was a master at portraying tranquil landscapes, and he often composed such poems when he was away from court. Commonly admired for their concrete images and visual immediacy, they display at the same time an intuitive sense of the unreality of sensory experience. Such an impression is frequently supported by statements of a philosophical or religious character.

Wang Wei was politically a Confucian who dabbled in Daoism and who loved the Buddhist Way, and he studied for years under a Chan master. When away from court, he burned incense, practiced Chan meditation, and loved to associate with Buddhist and Daoist monks. His commitment to Buddhism inspired many of his poems.

As a poet Wang Wei was independent, daringly experimental, and original. He strove always for simplicity, integrity, and spiritual truth. Although interested in perception, he was not concerned with what the eye saw but with what the mind intuited, with the inner spirit of things. His own emotion was always restrained. His poetry is wide in scope both thematically and stylistically. His contributions to the development of genre by his treatment of the quatrain, which depended on proper closure, and his personal handling of the couplet were of major importance.

Wang Wei’s influence on later Chinese poets began early. It is evident in the work of the later eighth century minor poets Liu Zhangqing—whose poetry was written late in his life—and Wei Yingwu. The great practitioners of the new shi yu poetry of the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127)—Ouyang Xiu, Wang Anshi, and above all Su Dongpo—looked to Wang Wei as their model. Indeed, it was Su Dongpo who elevated Wang’s reputation as a painter to equal his reputation as a poet. He was also responsible, as Marsha Wagner has noted, for a remark about one of Wang’s poems which, taken out of context and misinterpreted by others, led to his false reputation as the “painter-poet.” This misunderstanding in turn led to the aesthetic ideal that a good poem was a “painting-poem” (hua-shih). Two prominent poets of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911)—Wang Shi- Chêng and Shên Tê-ch’ien—who were also critics, formulated their poetic theories out of their admiration for Wang Wei’s poetry. Wang Shih-chêng held that genuine poetry amounted to the immediate embodiment of spiritual inspiration in words. Shên Tê-ch’ien, a fine teacher of Chinese prosody, held that the technical proficiency of Wang Wei proved him the greatest of all Chinese poets.

Bibliography

Chou, Shan. “Beginning with Images in the Nature Poetry of Wang Wei.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 42 (June, 1982): 117-137. Chou proposes that the solution to the problem of meaning in Wang Wei’s nature poetry is to be found in understanding the Buddhist influence.

Gong, Shu. “The Function of Space and Time as Compositional Elements in Wang Wei’s Poetry: A Study of Five Poems.” Literature East and West 16 (April, 1975): 1168-1193. Gong believes that the evocation of solitude and transient human existence in Wang Wei’s poetry is a function of his treatment of space and time.

Luk, Thomas Yuntong. “A Cinematic Interpretation of Wang Wei’s Nature Poetry.” New Asia Academic Bulletin 1 (1978): 151-161. Su Shih saw a Wang Wei poem as a pictograph; Walmsley saw it as a stereograph; Luk regards it as a cinematograph.

Owen, Stephen. “Wang Wei: The Artifice of Simplicity.” In The Great Age of Chinese Poetry: The High T’ang. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1981. Owen supplies an excellent short overview of Wang Wei as poetic technician and relates the poet’s work to his life and historical context.

Wagner, Marsha L. Wang Wei. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1982. Part of the Twayne World Authors series, this scholarly, well-written account of Wang Wei’s life provides a balanced, perceptive appraisal of his contributions as poet, painter, and government official. Includes fine translations.

Wang Wei. Poems by Wang Wei. Translated by Yin- nan Chang and Lewis C. Walmsley. Rutland, Vt.: Charles E. Tuttle Co., 1958. Chang and Walmsley provide worthy translations of 136 of Wang Wei’s poems. Includes a short critical introduction and a brief sketch of his life.

Wang Wei. Poems of Wang Wei. Translated by G. W. Robinson. Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1973. Fluid translations of 127 poems, with a brief introduction.

Wang Wei. The Poetry of Wang Wei: New Translations and Commentary. Translated by Pauline Yu. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1980. This study provides excellent, scholarly translations and notes as well as knowing critical appraisals of Wang Wei’s poems. The effort to supply a framework of Western critical apparatus that might be applied to Wang Wei’s poetry, however, appears dubious.