SOURCE: "Beginning with Images in the Nature Poetry of Wang Wei," in Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, Vol. 42, No. 1, June, 1982, pp. 117-37.

In the following essay, Chou traces natural imagery in the poems of Wang Wei and discusses the possible Buddhist themes implied by these symbols.

Wang Wei (701-61) is a poet whose reputation primarily rests on his nature poems. Although in the poems which have survived other themes are well represented—elaborate and perfect poemsabout the emperor's court, sentimental sketches of bucolic life, poems expressing friendship—it is with the nature poems that his name is universally identified. The prominence given a handful of nature poems reflects both the judgment that they contain the essence of Wang Wei's achievement and an acknowledgment of the position they occupy in the evolution of nature poetry. The sense displayed in these poems of a life lived in harmony with nature...