Confucius believes that good music is one of the keys to upholding the order of the country, so just be aware that by learning the banjo you're contributing directly to the collapse of the nation.
Nicely translated. I wonder how front-of-mind the Daoist associations would’ve been for Wang Wei, as opposed to the “thing Tao Yuanming and the Seven Sages and friends did” associations, but that’s just a guess.
I am not at all sure that Daoism was reified as a "thing" at all. Daoist is more of a label that we slap retrospectively on anything that we can't neatly compartmentalise into the Confucian or Buddhist buckets, isn't it? I don't think anyone in the Tang would recognise it as a cohesive tradition.
There's loads of Daoist stuff in this sequence - Gold Dust Spring is all about the alchemy, and the Apricot Wood Pavilion introduces some nature myth, and some of the gods appear in the Pepper Garden. But they aren't connected. It's all just a general mythology/folktale resource that he can draw on to elevate his view of the landscape.
Yeah, strongly agreed - I think it was Eric Zurcher who described the "three teachings" as being like mountains that rise up from a common plateau. Mostly I think the framing of them as "religions" leads to a lot of bad habits when it comes to identifying motifs/poems/poets as being essentially one or the other.
I often contenplate a world without recorded music. I’d finally have to learn me that banjo.
Confucius believes that good music is one of the keys to upholding the order of the country, so just be aware that by learning the banjo you're contributing directly to the collapse of the nation.
Perfect pitch is throwing an accordion into a dumpster and hitting a banjo!
Nicely translated. I wonder how front-of-mind the Daoist associations would’ve been for Wang Wei, as opposed to the “thing Tao Yuanming and the Seven Sages and friends did” associations, but that’s just a guess.
I am not at all sure that Daoism was reified as a "thing" at all. Daoist is more of a label that we slap retrospectively on anything that we can't neatly compartmentalise into the Confucian or Buddhist buckets, isn't it? I don't think anyone in the Tang would recognise it as a cohesive tradition.
There's loads of Daoist stuff in this sequence - Gold Dust Spring is all about the alchemy, and the Apricot Wood Pavilion introduces some nature myth, and some of the gods appear in the Pepper Garden. But they aren't connected. It's all just a general mythology/folktale resource that he can draw on to elevate his view of the landscape.
Yeah, strongly agreed - I think it was Eric Zurcher who described the "three teachings" as being like mountains that rise up from a common plateau. Mostly I think the framing of them as "religions" leads to a lot of bad habits when it comes to identifying motifs/poems/poets as being essentially one or the other.