The Late Poems of Meng Chiao

By Meng Chiao and David Hinton

Late in life, Meng Chiao (A.D. 751--814) developed an experimental poetry of virtuosic beauty, a poetry that anticipated landmark developments in the modern Western tradition by a millennium. With the T'ang Dynasty crumbling, Meng's later work employed surrealist and symbolist techniques as it turned to a deep introspection. This is truly major work-- work that may be the most radical in the Chinese tradition. And though written more than a thousand years ago, it is remarkably fresh and contemporary. But, in spite of Meng's significance, this is the first volume of his poetry to appear in English.


Until the age of forty, Meng Chiao lived as a poet-recluse associated with Ch'an (Zen) poet-monks in south China. He then embarked on a rather unsuccessful career as a government official. Throughout this time, his poetry was decidedly mediocre, conventional verse inevitably undone by his penchant for the strange and surprising. After his retirement, Meng developed the innovative poetry translated in this book. His late work is singular not only for its bleak introspection and "avant-garde" methods, but also for its dimensions: in a tradition typified by the short lyric poem, this work is made up entirely of large poetic sequences.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Release date: Sep 1, 2020
• ISBN: 9780691217727

Book preview

THE LATE POEMS OF MENG CHIAO

THE LOCKERT LIBRARY OF POETRY IN TRANSLATION

Editorial Advisor: Richard Howard

For other titles in the Lockert Library

see page 85

THE LATE POEMS OF

Meng Chiao

Translated by

David Hinton

Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey

Copyright © 1996 by Princeton University Press

Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street,

Princeton, New Jersey 08540

In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, Chichester,

West Sussex

All rights reserved

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Meng, Chiao, 751–814.

[Poems. English. Selections]

The late poems of Meng Chiao / translated by David Hinton

p. cm. — (Lockert library of poetry in translation)

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 0-691-01237-7 (alk. paper).

ISBN 0-691-01236-9 (pbk. : alk. paper)

1. Meng, Chiao, 751–814—Translations into English.

I. Hinton, David, 1954– . II. Title. III. Series.

PL2677.M4A24 1997

895.1’13—dc20 96-21157

The Lockert Library of Poetry in Translation is supported by a bequest from

Charles Lacy Lockert (1888–1974)

eISBN: 978-0-691-21772-7

R0

Other Translations by

David Hinton

Chuang Tzu: Inner Chapters

The Selected Poems of Li Po

Landscape over Zero, poems by Bei Dao

Forms of Distance, poems by Bei Dao

The Selected Poems of T’ao Ch’ien

The Selected Poems of Tu Fu

CONTENTS

Introduction  xi

MOURNING LU YIN  3

COLD CREEK  15

LAMENTS OF THE GORGES  27

APRICOTS DIED YOUNG  41

HEARTSONG  53

AUTUMN THOUGHTS  61

Notes  77

Finding List  81

Further Reading  83

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Some of these poems first appeared in SULFUR.

The translation of this book was supported by

grants from the Ingram Merrill Foundation and

the National Endowment for the Arts.

INTRODUCTION

There is a black side to the profound sense of dwelling that grounds Chinese culture, and Meng Chiao is perhaps its consummate poetic master. Our belonging to the earth’s natural processes has always been the primary source of spiritual affirmation in Chinas positivist culture, but it also means belonging to the consuming forces that drive those processes. Meng Chiao was imbued with the two great traditions of spiritual affirmation in China: Taoism, the ancient wellspring of Chinese spirituality, and Ch’an Buddhism (Zen), which was widely influential among the intellectual class during the T’ang and Sung dynasties. But while the Taoist/Ch’an worldview allows most great Chinese poets to inhabit the vulnerability of being human as a profoundly rich experience, Meng Chiao inhabits the consuming shadows