To understand the role Xie Lingyun (385-433) played in the (re)formation of Classical Chinese poetry is to delve into the fascinating cultural and aesthetic world of Early Medieval China. During this period following the collapse of the Han Empire (202 b.c.e.-220 c.e.), intellectuals were forced to discover anew their place in society through art and poetry. Although Xie is traditionally dubbed the “father of Chinese landscape poetry,” he has proven himself a more difficult figure to place than even his obscure contemporary Tao Yuanming. In contrast to Tao’s “rustic” style, Xie is known for his “ornate diction and intricate structure”—poetic features befitting his status as a duke. His life as a capital celebrity, far from being the moral paragon that Tao’s was, appeals through controversy. Difficulties with reading Xie Lingyun remain, especially under the framework where “landscape” or shanshui is considered predominantly as a subject matter. My talk approaches Xie Lingyun through shanshui’s formal dimensions where breakthroughs in the genre of shi poetry are realized. I use a structuralist analysis combined with literary-historical research to illuminate the enigmatic creative genius of fifth century China.
Ping Wang is Associate Professor of Chinese Literature at the University of Washington, Seattle. She has taught at the University of Colorado, Boulder; University of Wisconsin, Madison; and Princeton University. Her research focuses on the history of early and medieval Chinese literature, poetry and poetics, and translation and criticism. She is the author of The Age of Courtly Writing: Wen xuan Compiler Xiao Tong (501-531) and His Circle (Leiden: Brill, 2012) and co-editor of Southern Identity and Southern Estrangement in Medieval Chinese Poetry (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2015). She has published numerous journal articles on Six Dynasties and Tang poetry. Currently, she is working on a book manuscript that explores the cultural and textual meanings of the Chinese “landscape” (shanshui) and the role Xie Lingyun played in the (re)formation of shi poetry.