Wang Wei (Mochi, Mo-ch’i) (699–759) poet. Encyclopedia of World Writers, Beginnings To 20th Century

Wang Wei lived in China during the Tang (T’ang)
period, regarded as the height of Chinese civilization.
He was born in Shanxi (Shansi) to a father
who was a local official and a mother who came
from a family distinguished in literature. At age 16
he moved to the capital with his brother Jin (Chin)
and entered the social circle of princely society.
After graduating from university, he was awarded a
court appointment as assistant secretary of music.
He bought an estate on the edge of the Wang River
next to the Zhongnan (Chungnan) Mountains and
lived there off and on for the rest of his life.After his
wife died when he was a little over 30, he never remarried
and continued with his official life, leading
a long and undistinguished career in public service.
A passionate but reflective man, Wang Wei
(known also as Mochi [Mo-ch’i]) poured his energy
into poems, paintings, and music and was
known in his time for all of these arts. Today, his
poetic legacy is the only one that survives. Although
in retrospect he is overshadowed by the
creative genius of the other two major poets of the
Tang dynasty, LI BAI and Du Fu, at the time that
they lived, Wang Wei was the most prominent
among them, famous for his delicate, detailed, and
loving descriptions of natural landscapes.He was a
devout, practicing Buddhist, and the quiet and
mystical aspects of his religion are portrayed in the
landscapes he evokes with words. His poems express
tranquillity, purity, serenity, and a sense of
control. They also emphasize his love of solitude
and the sense that humankind is only part of a
larger natural order. In the poem “Deer Park,” for
example, he writes, “Returning light enters the
deep grove, / And again shines on the green moss.”
The serene and simple imagery in Wang Wei’s
poetry was often meant to extend beyond its literal
meaning. Four common elements of his
poems are an empty mountain, rain, voice, and
white clouds, all of which combine to create a feeling
of something deeper than just a landscape.His
poetry, however, was not formal religious poetry.A
line in his poem “Return to Wang River,” in a translation
by Tony Barnstone,Willis Barnstone and Xu
Hiaxin, illustrates the mystical and lyrical qualities
of his imagery: “Far off in the mountains is twilight
/ Alone I come back to white clouds.” The
contemplative nature of his writing emphasizes its
connection to his Buddhist identity and view of
the world.
Wang Wei’s combination of a spiritual feeling
and sparse imagery appeals to today’s readers. He
has been translated more often than any other Chinese
poet in the 20th century.Western audiences relate
to the tension he sometimes depicts between the
worldly and mystical sides of himself. In true Buddhist
fashion, he kept himself detached from the
materialistic world while holding his job in court.
Wang Wei seems to have saved his reserves of emotion
for his literary and other artistic activities. He
expressed his deep spiritual concerns also by converting
the house he had bought for his mother into
a monastery after her death. The monastery housed
seven monks, and although Wang Wei did not himself
join them, he visited often and is buried on the
grounds beside his mother. Accordingly, a theme of
his work is a contrast between public life and seclusion,
a topic that attracts modern Western audiences
struggling to fulfill the demands of their hectic lives
while retaining some sense of inner peace.
English Versions of Works by Wang Wei
Laughing Lost in the Mountains: Poems of Wang Wei.
Translated by Tony Barnstone,Willis Barnstone,
and Xu Haixin.Hanover, N.H.: University Press of
New England, 1991.
Songs of the Woodcutter: Zen Poems of Wang Wei and
Taigu Ryokan. Audio CD. Translated by Larry
Smith. Huron, Ohio: Bottom Dog Press, 2003.
Three Chinese Poets: Translations of Poems by Wang
Wei, Li Bai, and Du Fu. Translated by Vikram Seth.
Boston: Faber and Faber, 1992.
Works about Wang Wei
Wagner, Marsha L. Wang Wei. Boston: Twayne Publishers,
1981.
Weinberger, Eliot and Octavio Paz. Nineteen Ways of
Looking at Wang Wei: How a Chinese Poem is
Translated. Kingston, R.I.:Moyer Bell, 1987.

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