Mapping Transcendence in Wu Yun’s Poetry: Daoist Cultivation and Celestial Ascent in the “Dengzhen Fu” 登真賦 (“Rhapsody on Ascending to Perfection”)

Three of Wu Yun’s 吳筠 (d. 778) poems on transcendence survive in his collected works: “Buxu ci” 步虛詞 (Lyric on pacing the void), “Youxian shi” 遊仙詩 (Poem on roaming in transcendence), and “Dengzhen fu” 登真賦 (Rhapsody on ascending to perfection). This paper focuses on the last of these, the shortest of the three, which has not previously been translated, in spite of a large body of scholarship on Wu’s life and oeuvre. Through a translation and analysis of the fu , I attempt to draw connections between the three transcendence pieces, as well as Wu’s other prose writing. A detailed reading of the fu in relation to these other texts not only better elucidates Wu’s vision of cultivation and transcendence but also prompts us to reconsider Wu as a Daoist theorist and writer. I argue that a shared scheme of mystical ascension undergirds all three of these poems, one that is modeled on the plot of “Yuanyou” 遠遊 (Far roaming) of the Chuci 楚辭. Integrating knowledge culled from a range of Daoist sources, Wu employed various stylistic strategies to craft his vision of mystical ascension across these various poetic forms.