Review of Taming the Wild Horse: An Annotated Translation and Study of the Daoist Horse Taming Pictures

摘要

Abstract: This review of Louis Komjathy’s translation and interpretation of a 13th century set of illustrated poems places the work squarely within the emerging field of animal studies. Though essentially a map for Daoist monastic training, Komjathy notes that the Horse Taming Pictures, as he names them, are also about horses at some level. He therefore engages these pictures not as relics of a medieval eremitic order, but as works of art and poetry incorporating horses as timeless symbols and living creatures. While not strictly a work of ethics, Taming the Wild Horse takes time to consider human treatment of animals informed by Daoist thought.