Mr. Five Dippers of Drunkenville: the representation of enlightenment in Wang Ji's drinking poems.

• Author: Warner, Ding Xiang

If there is one thing for which the early Tang poet Wang Ji (590-644) is famous it is his own heavy drinking. Over thirty-five percent of the works in his five-juan collection refer to his fondness for wine, and the proportion is even greater (fifty percent) in the abridged three-juan collection.(1) Unfortunately, all too often the consequence of such a reputation has been for readers to undervalue Wang Ji's poetic achievements with dismissive labels like "drunken poet" and "tippler hermit."

We can concede, of course, that Wang Ji's drinking inspired much of his poetry;(2) but at the same time we must remember how pervasively wine drinking had been employed, for centuries before Wang Ji, as a literary motif to express particular sets of ideas and emotions. As students of Chinese literary history are well aware, at the end of the Later Hah and the early Wei-Jin period, especially, a call to drink often followed a poet's melancholy contemplation on the shortness and fragility of human life. Drunkenness was depicted as a comfort to mind and soul, a means to forget one's sufferings and to enjoy life in the moment. Later, Tao Qian (365-427) gave a philosophical significance to this theme, by portraying himself as a retired scholar in the country, whose blissful intoxication represented not only a comfort for sorrows, but a state of personal freedom from the bondage of the mundane world.

Wang Ji's self-portrayal as a drunken recluse also recalls the eccentric behavior of several Wei-Jin literati, as reported in works such as the Shishuo xinyu and, as well, the philosophy of Tao Qian's drunken farmer-scholar. However, Wang Ji used the materials of literary tradition for quite new purposes and, in consequence, his drinking poems have not been adequately understood. As I shall argue in this essay, while Wang Ji regularly invokes the famous drinkers and drinking poems of the past, he seldom attributes to himself their conventional motives for getting drunk. His drinking poems do not serve either to express or to drown personal despair or frustration. Instead, as we shall see, Wang Ji's drunken persona is a vehicle to demonstrate certain fundamental philosophical precepts drawn from Laozi and Zhuangzi - namely, the ever-changing course of the Way and the illusory nature of knowledge - and the state of drunkenness, in Wang Ji's imagination, thus proves to be a metaphor for the enlightened man's realization of these ideas.

II

A brief summary of Wang Ji's self-portrait as a drunkard, with an examination of how he incorporates the available motifs from poetic tradition in constructing his unique persona, prepares us to perceive the philosophical significance of drunkenness as he imagines it. Perhaps most pervasively, first of all, wine-drinking represents the poet's carefree spontaneity. His celebrations of natural phenomena, especially the coming of spring, tend to focus more on joyful descriptions of spontaneous drinking than on the ostensible topic. An example is the poem "In Spring, in the Garden, After Feeling Exhilarated."(3)

For the last few days I have been drunk, as usual; When we crossed into a new year, I was not even awake. Turning around, looking at the willow tree in the backyard, I suddenly notice several green branches. This must mean that spring is here! I lower my head and listen, and it is even more pleasant - The singing orioles flutter in confusion; Lotus leaves are growing all around the pond. Running full tilt, I chase after Ruan Ji; Waving my hand, I call out to Liu Ling. From behind the shelf, I peer at the empty racks - There are only a few small bottles left. A beautiful day like this is the day to finish them up; To leave them here, who is going to empty them?

In the middle of this informal narration of events, which are in a simple sequential order, Wang Ji places a neatly parallel and descriptive couplet that is typical of the courtly style of his period: "The singing orioles flutter in confusion. . . ." This couplet supplies a turning point for the poem, shifting the narrative mode from inactive to active by transforming the speaker's sensual descriptions (the singing orioles and burgeoning lotus leaves) into physical responses (running, waving and calling, and preparing to drink). Yet as neatly symmetrical as this poem's structure is, we are far more likely to be struck by the contrasting, disorderly character of its speaker. He has just regained consciousness after a drunken stupor so extended that spring has arrived without his notice. He responds to the discovery by running about like a madman-an unrestrained spirit, that is (like Ruan Ji and Liu Ling) - but shortly he is eyeing his remaining stock of wine, ready to finish it off and sink back into his former stupor. There is no sense that he has any cares or desires other than to let his actions suit the moment, and as he so humorously and so often asks: when isn't it the proper time to finish off the wine? His poem "Scribbled on a Tavern Wall, no. 2"(4) contains another expression of the same sentiment:

Bamboo-leaf wine is green, including its dregs; Grape wine is red, even its starter. If we meet for a drink yet we don't finish the bottles, Who is going to empty them after we part?

It is clear from these two poems that Wang Ji makes not the least apology for his drinking, but rather celebrates it, and elsewhere in his writings he often claims a spiritual kinship with the famous personalities of the Wei-Jin period, from Ruan Ji (210-63), Xi Kang (223-62), and Liu Ling (d. after 265), to Tao Qian, all of whom enjoy exemplary reputations as scholar-drunkards in subsequent tradition. Ruan Ji and Xi Kang are said to have deliberately maintained themselves in a drunken stupor in order to avoid emotional involvement and official engagement in the period of loose morals in which they lived; Liu Ling, for his part, seemed to have an innate love of wine and drank constantly whatever the circumstances. As for Tao Qian, the patriarch of drunken poets and master of the topos of idyllic inclusion, leisurely drinking and the celebration of simple wine and simple fare was presented in his poetry as an integral part of the carefree man's style of life.

Comparisons between Wang Ji the man and his Wei-Jin literary models have tended to preoccupy readers of Wang Ji's poetry and, frankly, have led to rather unproductive debates. Literary issues have been downgraded, with preference given to such questions as "did Wang Ji have a legitimate, moral excuse to turn to drink?" Or, "was he irresponsibly imitating famous drinker-intellectuals of the past at a time when literati enjoyed great opportunities at court?" Or, "was alcoholism just a flaw in Wang Ji's character?"(5) This essay aims to demonstrate that focusing on Wang Ji's language, not his character, makes us better readers of his poetry.

We can, though, take a first step by attending to words reportedly spoken by Wang Ji in a story by Lu Cai, who says in his preface that in the poet's later years he drank excessively and without restraint, so that some of his fellow villagers reproached him. Wang Ji responded with laughter, according to Lu Cai, saying: "You fellows don't understand. It is just the way it should be".(6) The "way" (li) in Wang Ji's response signifies, in philosophical discourse, the natural order or pattern that informs all living things in the world. Its significance to Wang Ji's conception of drinking is elaborated in a letter to a certain Mr. Cheng, in which Wang Ji explains his love of wine:

I am fond of drinking by nature; it is what my body depends on. . . . I drink alone behind the closed door, having no need for companions. Whenever I get very drunk, I feel that my mind is clear, calm, and peaceful, that my arteries and veins are open and smooth. [Drinking] not only infringes on nothing in the world but also gives me personal pleasure; therefore I often indulge myself in self-contentment.(7)

Drunkenness, in Wang Ji's formulation, cleanses the body and soul and clears the head rather than offering the pleasing befuddlement that distracts the mind from worldly cares. It is, in fact, posited by Wang Ji as the ultimate sobriety of the mind, as we will see.

III

Wang Ji's conception of drinking as a metaphor for clarity of mind goes far toward explaining the differences between his self-representation and that of his most important model, Tao Qian. Even in his most celebrated drinking poems, Tao Qian betrays an ambivalence toward his professed detachment and disregard for personal obligations and moral values. His drinking poems, as well as some of his other writings, reflect an inner conflict between his confessed ambition to accomplish great deeds, on the one hand, and his avid desire to...