MOUNTAIN HOME
The Wilderness Poetry of Ancient China
translated by DAVID HINTON
New York: Counterpoint, 2002. 295 pages, $28

reviewed by Eva Shan Chou

Many people in the West are familiar with the landscape paintings of China, which have a tradition extending back a thousand years. Probably less familiar are the landscape poems, whose tradition is actually much older, originating some two thousand years ago.

The experienced translator David Hinton takes up this very popular category of poetry in a new volume, entitled Mountain Home, and gives it an interesting twist by using his own term for it, "wilderness poetry." In his introduction, he argues that to call such poetry "landscape" is to relegate it merely to a "picturesque realm." It is really, he says, about wilderness, which has an implicit "dynamic cosmology," and the poetry about it should be regarded as an "engagement with wilderness."

In the rest of his eight-page introduction, Hinton explains the commonly held cosmological views that underlie this poetry, starting with its Taoist roots. He helpfully gives an interpretation of one poem, by Chia Tao, by printing and analyzing it three times, the poem more deeply experienced each time after further explanations of the Chinese world view.

Hinton translates poems from three eras: "the beginnings," the short-lived Liu-Sung Dynasty of the late fourth and early fifth centuries (presenting works by two poets, contemporaries of each other); the T'ang Dynasty (618-907, eleven poets); and the Sung Dynasty (960-1279, six poets). All the poets are very famous. Each receives an introduction varying from a half page to three pages. Most are represented by ten or so poems, which is a good number for getting a sense of the poet's work. The poems are nearly all short, four or eight lines, most in the shih genre, and are attractively placed, usually one on a page. Running footers allow readers to keep track of which poet they are reading, and the attached dates are very useful. A map of China on which only the poetically important places are marked is another helpful aid. Brief "Notes" and "Key Terms" at the end of the book are helpful in explaining conventions; for example, the special place of wine in poetry in producing a state of mind that gives "clarity of attention," or, to cite another example, why owls are associated with dying.

My one criticism is that under "Selected Readings," Hinton lists only his own work wherever he has published a translated volume (true for the poets T'ao Ch'ien, Li Po, Tu Fu, Po Chü-i, Meng Chiao, and the Taoist classic Tao Te Ching). Hinton's translations are admirable, but ignoring other translations is not helpful to the reader. Some good works by other translators may be out of print, but that is the fate of all volumes of poetry; many of the works that are listed are chiefly available in libraries. In the case of Po Chü-i especially, it is a pity not to see Arthur Waley's old (1949) but splendid study The Life and Times of Po Chü-i, which continues to introduce many readers to Chinese culture and history.

Hinton's translations are energetic and inventive. They read well, especially out loud (as they should be read). I can do no better than to end this review with some examples of his work:

In one poem, Hinton conveys the vigor of Li Po landscapes: a waterfall "sending pearls in flight scattering into mist / and whitewater seething down towering rock," and in another, "I scramble up cliffs into impossible valleys." This is the quieter Meng Hao-jan, "and at dusk, scarce people grow scarcer still," and in another poem, "Autumn begins unnoticed. Nights slowly lengthen." The "unnoticed" is especially good—accurate and subtle. Here is Wang Wei mourning Meng Hao-jan, "My dear friend nowhere in sight, / this Han River keeps flowing east." And the complex, twisty Meng Chiao: "Lonely bones can't sleep nights. Singing / insects keep calling them, calling them." Or, more of a tongue twister, reflecting something of the dense Chinese original, "Dragons / wolf down heaving mountain waters."

I hope these quotations suffice to persuade readers to seek out the entire volume from which they come.