Laughing Lost in the Mountains: Poems of Wang Wei

by Wang Wei, Willis Barnstone (Translator), Tony Barnstone (Translator)

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.

Genres: Poetry, China, Asia

244 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1992

About the author

Wang Wei (Chinese: 王維, 699-761) was a Chinese poet, painter, musician, and politician of the Tang dynasty, widely regarded as one of the most accomplished and influential literary figures of his time. Known for his mastery of both poetry and painting, he was a key figure in the development of Chinese landscape poetry and art, particularly in the fusion of poetry and painting, a concept later described by critics as embodying "poetry within a painting, and a painting within poetry." His work, deeply influenced by Buddhist thought, particularly Chan (Zen) Buddhism, is characterized by themes of nature, solitude, and contemplation.
A prolific poet, Wang Wei wrote nearly 400 poems, 29 of which were included in the celebrated anthology Three Hundred Tang Poems. His poetic style was known for its elegant simplicity, evocative imagery, and deep emotional resonance. His mastery of the jueju (quatrain) form, especially his landscape poetry, set a standard that influenced generations of poets and artists. Though none of his paintings have survived, his influence on Chinese landscape painting was profound, and his artistic techniques and themes were emulated by later painters, particularly in the literati tradition.
Born into an aristocratic family, Wang Wei demonstrated exceptional literary and artistic talent from a young age. He achieved the highest rank in the imperial examination and enjoyed a successful, though at times turbulent, career as a government official. His later years were deeply shaped by the political upheavals of the An Lushan Rebellion, during which he was briefly held captive by rebel forces. Following his release, he withdrew further into Buddhist practice, dividing his time between official duties and the solitude of his estate in Lantian, where he wrote some of his most famous works.
Wang Wei's legacy endures in both Chinese and world literature. His poetry has been widely translated and studied, influencing poets and writers across cultures, including the Japanese haiku tradition and Western literary figures such as Ezra Pound and Gustav Mahler. His artistic vision, emphasizing the harmonious unity of nature and human spirit, remains a cornerstone of Chinese aesthetic philosophy.

Reviews

[Flo · Rating 4 out of 5]

The stillness of meditation
I see as far as Taihang Mountains night and day,
but vacillate and never go there.
You ask me why?
I am tangled in the net of the world
…
My love for the tainted world weakens daily
as the stillness of meditation eases my mind.
Someday soon I’ll go.
Why should I wait until the cloud of my age
collapses in twilight?

*

Spring outing
A horizon of apricot trees by the river,
with blossoms open in the night wind.
Colors swarm through the orchard
where trees are green waves on fire.

In one life how many times can the heart break?

An aged poet wonders without taking his eyes off the peach blossoms by the river.




Feb 11, 18
* Also on my blog.
Photo credit: via China

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

I suppose this is three ways of looking at Wang Wei, and here's yet another fifteenth:

Deer Park

Nobody in sight on the empty mountain
but human voices are heard far off.
Low sun slips deep in the forest
and lights the green hanging moss.



*****

Not my favorite translation of this poem. I prefer more imagistic approach, using less English glue (articles, prepositions).

[Chelsea Quake · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wang Wei should never be read in a hurry! If you rush it, you'll miss it. Once you realise just how much this great and very popular poet was capable of compacting into only a few lines, you may well find it blows your mind... and that's a good thing, if you want to experience Zen.

[George · Rating 5 out of 5]

Marvelous. Wang Wei, as always, speaks the hermit's life with insight and tenderness.

[Jonathan Schmitt · Rating 5 out of 5]

AWESOME for a quiet evening, especially if you're on the porch with some iced tea. Or if you are standing on a median, looking for solitude, or some gentle company...

[Domhnall · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wang Wei (about 699 – 761 CE) is listed alongside Du Fu and others in China’s golden era. “T’ang China, like Elizabethan England, was virtually a nation of singing birds.” [Professor Liu Wu-chi] He spent much of his life as a not terribly successful bureaucrat in the service of the emperor, and while he was dedicated to his art (painting as well as poetry) and expressed a continual passion to withdraw into the mountains and pursue a contemplative life in the spirit of Chan Buddhism, or Zen, he seems to have fallen short of sanctity and retained a need for the more mundane comforts of friendship and company, much to the benefit of his poetry.

The poems in this collection are both down to earth and witty, while achieving all the same a sense of the mystical. At one point in a helpful introduction, Yip Wailim is quoted as saying: “The state of stillness, silence or quiescence is ubiquitous in all Wang Wei’s poems. He is the quietist poet in Chinese and perhaps in all literary history.” Another writer, Pauline Yu, is quoted as saying: “if he draws attention to himself at all, it is generally as one thing among many others.” I think my own impression is that his poems display humility, an absence of pretension, which makes it accessible and never intimidating.

If anything, the introduction – which is not over long – offers more help than the reader really needs. More important is the patience for quiet reading and long intervals, to let the words do their work. Inevitably, individual lines and images have the strongest impact, followed by some extra special poems, and then poems that seem to emerge from a mist, slowly but at last dramatically. Most striking for me are his references to friendship, captured sometimes in a special way with a poignant expression:

Having parted we share only the same moon


A foreigner, / My vagabond heart is in knots


Across the water in my small cottage / at year’s end I take your hand. / You and I, we are the only ones alive.

[Jenny · Rating 2 out of 5]

Quite honestly, I can't remember how this book got into my library stack. Someone, somewhere (probably on facebook) recommended Wang Wei's poetry, so I put it on hold, and then, some time later, it magically appeared in my pile of books at the library. But who recommended it and why--I have no idea.

So I went into it, not knowing what to expect. And I found myself completely uninterested and unimpressed. This could be the the fault of the poet, the translator, my mood, or a combination of all three. Regardless of reason, this isn't a book I'll be finishing or (most likely) one I'll be returning to in the future.

[Sem · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm convinced that volumes of poetry in translation are best without elaborate (and in this case, tedious) introductions unless the purpose is scholarly. An occasional clarifying footnote and a brief biography is all that I need. The translations here are very good but my word it was a slog getting to them.

[Ankur Agarwala · Rating 5 out of 5]

It can be very difficult to translate Chinese poetry into languages such as English, because in Chinese, the script itself lends to poeticity. However, Tony Barnstone is the finest translator I've ever read, and he does so here with a sensitivity as great as that of the great poet Wang Wei.

[Matt Miles · Rating 5 out of 5]

There’s something about painters who mastered both painting and poetry. There’s beautiful imagery in most of these poems, and each one also has a deeply human story just off to the side. This is quiet,deceptively profound work.

[Lewis Zimmerman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Want Wei is my favorite poet. A voice of joy and hope in hard times.

[Ormond College Library · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wang Wei should never be read in a hurry! If you rush it, you'll miss it. Once you realise just how much this great and very popular poet was capable of compacting into only a few lines, you may well find it blows your mind... and that's a good thing, if you want to experience Zen.

Chelsea Wright