Mirages on the Sea of Time: The Taoist Poetry of Ts'ao T'ang
Since the early seventeenth century, Taoism-the native religion of China-has been generally regarded by authorities there as base superstition and potentially subversive. The Taoist poetry of medieval China was consequently ignored by Chinese arbiters of taste and, until recently, most Western scholars and translators have accepted this judgment uncritically; a body of beautiful verse, with analogues in the poetry of Christian mysticism, has remained virtually unknown in our time. This book...
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Since the early seventeenth century, Taoism-the native religion of China-has been generally regarded by authorities there as base superstition and potentially subversive. The Taoist poetry of medieval China was consequently ignored by Chinese arbiters of taste and, until recently, most Western scholars and translators have accepted this judgment uncritically; a body of beautiful verse, with analogues in the poetry of Christian mysticism, has remained virtually unknown in our time. This book augments the efforts of a few contemporary Western scholars to recover the meaning and value of this literary heritage. The eminent sinologist Edward H. Shafer translated all the surviving verse of the ninth-century poet Ts'ao T'ang, and to the selections published here has added introductory remarks on the source of the poet's imagery and short essays on his treatment of figures of the Taoist pantheon. Ts'ao Tang has placed these deities and demiurges in a number of unstable or ambiguous settings such as celestial gardens, sparkling palaces on the summits of sacred mountains, and secret places of rendezvous on magic islands in the eastern sea. The poet creates a world of illusions, in which it is difficult to distinguish vestments from rainbows, castles from crags, birds from spirits, sea-waves from sea-mounts-even lords from ladies. These contrived wonders are all metaphors for a world completely inaccessible to our mortal senses.
Introduction 1\ Mao Shan 2\ Taoist Poets of T'ang 7\ Poetic Forms with Taoist Content 11\ Terminology 16\ Translations 26\ Part I Ts'ao T'ang and His Elysian Encounters 31\ Part II Principalities of the Sea 49\ P'eng-lai 51\ The Hollow Worlds 61\ Jade Consorts and Pelagic Costumes 66\ Clam Castles and the Fata Morgana 80\ Miss Hemp 90\ Fu-sang 103\ Blue Lad and the Fang-chu Palace 108\ Notes 123\ Bibliographies 137\ Glossaries 143\ Index 147
