JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. This content downloaded from 134.114.138.130 on Sat, 11 Jul 2015 22:20:05 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and ConditionsGive him a mask, and he will tell you the truth. Oscar Wilde, "The Artist as Critic" " A HEN I die, dress me in monk's garb, bury me near the VY Spiritual mountains of Teng-wei, and erect a rounded rock before my tomb with the inscription: 'Here lies the poet Wu Mei-ts'un.' r" These were the words of Wu Wei-yeh -M (Wu Mei-ts'un -4Wtt) on his deathbed, the words of a true poet who made poetry the final judgment of his life. Considered the greatest poet of his time, Wu Wei-yeh wrote as much out of a need to understand as out of a wish to be understood. For the period in which he lived-the dynastic transition from the Ming to the Ch'ing-was one of the most unsettling times in An earlier draft of this article was presented at the Conference on Chinese Cultural History, sponsored by the Program in East Asian Studies, Princeton University, in May 1987. I wish to express my appreciation to T. T. Ch'en and F. W. Mote, from whom I have drawn my initial inspiration to write this paper. I would also like to thank Yu-kung Kao, , who offered helpful suggestions on one or another draft. In particular, I am grateful to an anonymous reader who reviewed this article for HJAS; his comments and suggestions were most extensive and helpful. See Ma Tao-yuian .ifi, ed., Wu Mei-ts'un nien-p'u -%;*A4 (1935; rpt. Hong Kong: Ch'ung-wen shu-tien, 1972), p. 78: ip1E, 1tUfR9 R tM1 M RIJ A-[M;E, WEHI:g Henceforth this work will be referred to as Nien-p'u. 289 This content downloaded from 134.114.138.130 on Sat, 11 Jul 2015 22:20:05 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions KANG-I SUN CHANG Chinese history. In his youth, before the fall of the Ming, Wu Weiyeh was one of the nation's most prized young scholar-officials-at the age of twenty-three sui, he placed first in the metropolitan examination and second in the palace examination, and was awarded a prestigious position in the Hanlin Academy. After the fall of the dynasty, he began to live in seclusion, and for twenty-five years fluctuated between nostalgia for the past and a deepening sense of regret for having once served the new dynasty.2 He said: "In my life there has been worry and dread in all the things I have encountered. There was not a single moment when I did not experience trials, and there was not a single situation in which I did not undergo hardships. Truly I am the most suffering person in all the world. "3 It was through poetry that he sought to understand the meaning of his suffering, and to bear witness to the solitude of the survivors of a fallen dynasty. And his only hope springs from the desire to be understoo...