A Wild Deer Amid Soaring Pheonixes

A Wild Deer amid Soaring Phoenixes aims to define Wang Ji's literary method - to demonstrate a way of reading his poems to discover how their textual features convey meaning and experience. To do this, Ding Xiang Warner argues that Wang Ji's self-representation as a recluse must be viewed against the momentous historical events of his times and the scholarly activities attending the consolidation of empire under the Sui and early Tang dynasties.
In each chapter of this well-crafted study, Warner examines a different dimension of Wang's literary persona - the recluse as philosopher, as farmer-scholar, as drunkard, as traveler on a real and allegorical journey - and explicates the manner by which this persona manifests the conception of an ever-changing world, compelling readers to experience the illusoriness of reality. In the process, they will encounter the diverse, surprising, and often humorous ways in which metaphysics was realized in the art of Wang Ji's poetry.

Ding Xiang Warner is assistant professor of Chinese literature in the Department of Asian Studies Cornell University.