SOURCE: "Wang Wei and the Aesthetic of Pure Experience," in Tamkang Review, Vol. 2, No. 2, October 1971-April 1972, pp. 199-208.

In the following essay, the critic asserts that Wang Wei's nature poetry is not simply about nature but that it actually becomes nature through the Taoist emphasis on pure experience.

1

The best introduction to Wang Wei's poetry is a poem of Ars Poetica by Ssu-k'ung T'u (837-908):

 Bend down—and there it is:
No need to wrest it from others.
With the Way, in complete consort—
The mere touch of a hand is spring:
The way we come upon blooming flowers,
The way we see the year renew itself.
What comes this way will stay;
What is gotten by force will drain away.
A secluded man in an empty mountain,
As rain drops, picks some blades of duckweeds.
Freely to feel the flash of dawn:
Leisurely, with the celestial balance...