Chinese Poetry, 2nd Ed., Revised: An Anthology of Major Modes and Genres

by Wai-lim Yip

Book Overview

This is the first paperback edition of a classic anthology of Chinese poetry. Spanning two thousand years--from the Book of Songs (circa 600 B.C.) to the ch form of the Yuan Dynasty (1260-1368)--these... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0822319462
• ISBN13: 9780822319467
• Release Date: April 1997
• Publisher: Duke University Press
• Length: 376 Pages
• Weight: 1.34 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.0" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Not just for scholars

I am neither a scholar, intellectual or poet. I had a passing interest in Chinese poetry and language. I picked this book up at random. The chapter about translation is fascinating. To see how translation developed since the late 19th century is illuminating. I remember being taught in elementary school that Japanese and Chinese were "inferior" language because of their use of pictograms. The poetry is beautiful and fascinating in its' spaciousness of translation, which invites the reader into experience. This book drew me into studying Chinese for a short while, just enough to give me the ability to read a bit here and there in some simple poetry. With even my paltry understanding, Yip's analysis and examples of his students' experimental translations, gave me the audacity, perhaps, to try this. The most non-intellectual response: what a lovely treat!

A Superb Writing Resource

Wai-Lim Yip sets the standard for the study of Chinese poetry by printing the original text side by side with both a word-for-word translation and an extended interpretation of the same for over 150 poems spanning all genres of Chinese poetry. By far, this book provides the most accessible versions of each poem. What it may lack in comprehensive representation, it more than makes up for in quality and packaging. While its translations do not fully become English poems, as critics have often said, the author does provide the reader with a most direct access to the binary data of the originals. As such, he expects the reader to work a little to put the poem to use. This book will interest a writer, especially one interested in translation and sources for new work, more than a scholar expecting brilliant English renditions of these classic poems. Bottom line, there should be more books of Eastern poetry in "translation" in this form: original text in original characters, a word-for-word bare bones rendition, and then the translator's extrapolation of those bones. A fantastic learning tool for any writer.

Poetic and Cultural Breakthrough

I find Yip's approach to be a fundamental breakthrough in crosscultural awareness which attempts to bring chinese culture to life for the western mind. This attempt reaches past the analytic perspective and borders on a cultural anthropology of mind. This is of keen value to psychologists, who began a primitive study in the late 1880's under the direction of Wundt. It went no further than 1900.Besides the importance for linguists, those inspired by ancient texts, translators who value perspective within a language, students of comparative religion and traditional chinese medicine, a breakthough in the realm of poetry is attempted with a boldness that affirms the host culture as experienced by a chinese person. This will be an incredible experience for those who approach poetry with a serious intention. Yip's sensitivity and straightforwardness is refreshing and opens a vast new landscape. This, to me, places the text in the forefront of a new begining.

Appreciating the dynamics of Chinese poetry.

CHINESE POETRY : An Anthology of Major Modes and Genres. Edited and translated by Wai-lim Yip. 358 pp. Durham NC and London : Duke University Press, 1997. ISBN 0-8223-1951-9 (pbk.)Wai-lim Yip, Professor of Literature at the University of California at San Diego, is a poet, a sophisticated thinker, and a brilliant translator, critic, and theorist. As heir to one of the richest and most subtle literatures in the world, he has always been understandably concerned about the often inferior quality of Western translations from Chinese, an inferiority he attributes to a misreading of the Chinese sensibility, and a reading into it of invalid Western assumptions. In other words, Western translators who do not understand the classical Chinese mind, can only represent it as operating more or less like their own minds, and in thus representing it end up by grossly misrepresenting it.Professor Yip earlier devoted an entire study to this subject : 'Diffusion of Distances : Dialogues Between Chinese and Western Poetics' (1993). In the present book he has given the essentials of his argument in an introductory essay that bears careful reading : 'TRANSLATING CHINESE POETRY : The Convergence of Language and Poetics - A Radical Introduction' (pp.1-27).In the Preface to his book, Professor Yip tells us that : "Underlying the classical Chinese aesthetic is the primary idea of noninterference with Nature's flow [cf., the Taoist 'Wu Wei']. As reflected in poetic language, this idea has engendered freedom from the syntactical rigidities often found in English. . . . This opens up an indeterminate space for readers to enter and reenter for multiple perceptions rather than locking thm into some definite perspectival position or guiding them in a certain direction" (page xiii).This opening up of spaces in which all things, including the reader, are allowed to become themselves may sound a bit abstract to some, but its marvelous effects will be felt by anyone who sincerely opens themselves to the poems in this anthology.The anthology contains 150 poems, drawn from all major modes and genres, which span two thousand years - from the 'Book of Songs' (c. - 600) to the poems of the Yuan Dynasty (+ 1260-1368). Each poem is printed with the original Chinese text in Professor Yip's beautiful brushed calligraphy, co-ordinated with word-by-word glosses, and followed by his spare and powerful translations. The effect is to correct more than a century of distortion caused by translators who were blind to the intricacies and aesthetics of the Chinese language, and to let English readers finally enter into the dynamics of the originals. Each section of the book is preceded by a short essay on the mode or genre to follow, and a useful 5-page Bibliography rounds out the book.Here, as an example of Yip's style, is his rendering of a poem by Wang Wei on page 228. The Chinese text is given first at the top of the page, then the word-by-word translation which I sh

Chinese poetry in the Chinese manner

I have been very uneasy with most translations of Chinese classic poetry because it is usually rendered in English classic poetic style [iambic pentameter, end rhymes in ENGLISH!, etc.] This is the first translation I have seen that makes an argument for a convincingly Chinese meaning. One does not need to understand Chinese characters to appreciate the character-by- character, word-by-word rendering. Then, there follows a sparse poetical version which lets one see the minimalism of the original Chinese. A truly fine translation that has helped me appreciate the real beauty of Chinese poetry.