Table Of ContentA
WILD DEER
AMID
SOARING
PHOENIXES
A
WILD DEER
AMID
SOARING
PHOENIXES
The Opposition Poetics of Wang Ji
❁
Ding Xiang Warner
UNIVERSITY OF HAWAI‘I PRESS
HONOLULU
Publication has been supported in part
by a grant from the Hull Memorial Publication
Fund of Cornell University.
©2003 University of Hawai‘i Press
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
08 07 06 05 04 03 6 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Warner, Ding Xiang.
A wild deer amid soaring phoenixes:the opposition poetics of Wang Ji
/ Ding Xiang Warner.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8248-2669-8 (alk. paper)
1. Wang, Ji, 585–644—Criticism and interpretation. I. Title:
Opposition poetics of Wang Ji. II. Title.
PL2677.W265 Z95 2003
895.1’124—dc21
2003005066
University of Hawai‘i Press books are printed on acid-free
paper and meet the guidelines for permanence and durability
of the Council on Library Resources.
Designed bySantos Barbasa Jr.
Printed byThe Maple-Vail Book Manufacturing Group
Contents
❁
Acknowledgments • vii
A Note on Transliteration • ix
Introduction: Reading Wang Ji • 1
1. Wang Ji and Sui-Tang Literati Culture • 13
2. The Recluse as Philosopher • 43
3. The Recluse as Farmer-Scholar • 67
4. The Recluse as Drunkard • 89
5. “You Beishan fu”and the Problem of Knowing • 113
Conclusion: The Idealization of the Recluse • 147
Notes • 153
Bibliography • 201
Index • 211
Index of Titles in English • 215
Index of Titles in Chinese • 217
• v •
Acknowledgments
❁
uring the long
D course of preparing this book, I have received gener-
ous support and encouragement from good friends, nurturing teachers,
and kindhearted colleagues. To all of them I wish to express my deep grat-
itude. I especially thank the following for their major roles in helping me
to shape and complete this study of Wang Ji’s poetry: Professors David R.
Knechtges, William G. Boltz, and Jerry Norman of the University of
Washington for the invaluable training they provided me during my gradu-
ate school years as well as their comments on the initial stage of this proj-
ect represented by my Ph.D. dissertation; the late Professor Jack L. Dull,
also of the University of Washington, for his remarks during one of our
conversations which assisted me in conceiving of my approach to inter-
preting Wang Ji’s poetry; Professor Alvin P. Cohen of the University of
Massachusetts, Amherst, for his input on an earlier version of the manu-
script and for his encouragement since; and Professor Daniel Boucher of
Cornell University for his timely assistance with several of Wang Ji’s
obscure allusions to Buddhist texts. I am also greatly indebted to Professor
Paul W. Kroll of the University of Colorado, Boulder, both for his unflag-
ging support of my work on Wang Ji over the years and for his meticulous
reading of the manuscript in its penultimate form. His scrupulous detail
and accuracy saved me from potential embarrassments and his insightful
suggestions for revision (or requests for clarification) helped to improve
my argument in many places. I am likewise grateful to an anonymous
reader for the University of Hawai‘i Press for many useful comments and
recommendations; to Mr. Don Yoder for his careful copyediting of the
final manuscript; and to Ms. Pamela Kelley, whose efforts made the entire
process of this book’s evaluation and preparation for the University of
• vii •
viii • acknowledgments
Hawai‘i Press a genuine pleasure. For any errors of fact or interpretation
that remain in its pages, however, I am of course solely responsible.
Members of the American Oriental Society, Western Branch, gave me
several opportunities to present portions of my work on the life and poetry
of Wang Ji at their annual meetings, and their feedback helped me to
develop a number of ideas presented in this study. Some material included
in Chapters 4 and 5 of this book was previously published in an earlier
form. I thank Paul W. Kroll and the American Oriental Society for per-
mission to reprint a revised version of my essay “Mr. Five Dippers of
Drunkenville: The Representation of Enlightenment in Wang Ji’s Drinking
Poems,” which appeared in the Journal of the American Oriental Society
118(3) (1998): 347–355. I thank Ge Yun and China’s Jiangsu Education
Press for permission to use “Shi lun Wang Ji de ‘You Beishan fu’” (Inquiry
into the Reading of Wang Ji’s “Fu on Roaming the Northern Mountains”),
in Cifu wenxue lunji (Essays on cifu literature), ed. Chinese Department
of Nanjing University (Nanjing: Jiangsu jiaoyu chubanshe, 1999), pp.
426–439.
I am, as well, profoundly grateful to the Hull Memorial Publication
Fund review committee at Cornell University. A generous grant from this
fund met the extra production costs of including Chinese characters in the
text and notes of this book.
Finally, I wish to express my most sincere thanks to my husband,
J. Christopher Warner, an accomplished scholar in the field of English
Renaissance literature. Throughout my work on this project he was my
most avid supporter, always taking time from his teaching and research
schedule to listen to my ideas, ask probing questions, and critique my
drafts. I learned as much from his critical insights as the manuscript bene-
fits from them. Chris, this book is for you.
A Note on Transliteration
❁
ll transliterations
A of Chinese in this study are in pinyin. When
quoting English translations and studies that employ the Wade-Giles sys-
tem, I have silently changed their spellings to pinyin for the sake of unifor-
mity. I have not, however, altered in any way the titles of these works.
• ix •
