A Brotherhood in Song: Chinese Poetry and Poetics
A Brotherhood in Song: Chinese Poetry and Poetics
Edited by Stephen C. Soong
1985
386 pages
ISBN 962-201-356-2
From the Tang dynasty to the present day, for over 1,200 years, classical poetry in the form of regulated verse has been arguably the most popular literary art form in China. Its long tradition has been kept alive by the innumerable prolific masters of the genre, and appreciated by the widest possible audience from the highly educated to the man in the street. Lines and phrases from well-known poems have found their way into the langue of the common people. This volume is a personal anthology, rather than a reference handbook. It evokes the world of Chinese poesy by collecting together some of its finest writings, from the Golden Era of the T'ang Dynasty to the present day.
The first section dwells on Poetics, and includes essays by Ch'ien Chung-shu, Yeh Chia-ying, James Liu and Wen I-to. The second section is devoted to Poetry, and contains translations done mostly by veterans of the art, classical poetry and lyrics from the T'ang and Sung, songs from the Yüan and Ming, and three contemporary poets. The poems are accompanied by the original Chinese texts. The third section contains three essays on the Art of Poetry Translation, while the fourth contains two miniature anthologies of Poems On Poetry, from the Sung and Ch'ing dynasties.
The volume also contains an introductory essay by the editor, describing the Chinese poetic tradition, and setting the framework for his anthology, which is very much that of a poetry club. It is a volume to celebrate the living joy of this ancient art.
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
EDITOR’S PAGE
STEPHEN SOONG: Introduction: The Chinese Poetic Tradition — 1
POETICS
CH’IEN CHUNG-SHU: Poetry as a Vehicle of Grief translated by Siu-kit Wong — 21
YEH CHIA-YING: Li Shang-yin’s “Four Yen-t’ai Poems” translated by James R. Hightower — 41
JAMES J.Y. LIU: Chiang K’uei’s Poetics — 93
HUANG KUO-PIN: Li Po and Tu Fu: A Comparative Study — 99
WEN I-TO: Form in Poetry translated by Randy Trumbull — 127
POETRY
Five Poems translated by David Hawkes — 137
LI PO: The Hard Road to Shu translated by A.C. Graham — 142
STEPHEN OWEN: Some Mid-T’ang Quatrains — 145
Six Poems translated by Arthur Cooper — 179
Fifteen Selected Lyrics translated by D.C. Lau — 187
LI CH’ING-CHAO: Double Brightness translated by John Minford — 200
LU YU: Seven Poems translated by Burton Watson — 201
WU WEN-YING: Five Tz’u Songs translated by Grace S. Fong — 205
Fifteen Yüan San-Ch’ü translated by C.H. Kwock and Gary G. Gach — 215
Ten Ming Songs translated by K.C. Leung — 230
CHU HSIANG: Thirteen Lyric Poems translated by Bonnie S. McDougall — 241
MU TAN: Eleven Poems translated by Pang Bingjun — 252
CHENG CH’OU-YÜ: Ten Poems translated by Huang Kuo-pin — 273
THE ART OF POETRY TRANSLATION
STEPHEN SOONG: The “Biased Compound” in Chinese Poetic Diction — 287
LING CHUNG: This Ancient Man Is I — 307
JOHN CAYLEY: To Keep Them from Falling — 331
POEMS ON POETRY
JOHN TIMOTHY WIXTED: Sung-Dynasty and Western Poems on Poetry — 351
TAI FU-KU and YÜAN HAO-WEN: Poems on Poetry translated by John Timothy Wixted — 360
Brush and Breath: Poems on Poetry from the Ch’ing Dynasty translated by John Minford — 371
Notes on Contributors — 383
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EDITOR(s)
Stephen C. Soong (宋淇), often writing under the pen name of Lin I-liang 林以亮, is the Director of the Research Centre for Translation and Editor of Renditions. His translations and publications include Anthology of American Poetry (美國詩選), Discourses on Poetry (林以亮詩話), Hung-lou Meng's Journey to the West (紅樓夢西遊記) and Literature and Translation (文學與翻譯). He is also the editor of the Special Issue on Tz'u, Renditions Nos. 11 & 12, 1979, which has a hardcover edition: Song Without Music.