How to Read A Chinese Poem: A Bilingual Anthology of Tang Poetry

by Edward C. Chang

This bilingual edition of Tang poems offers a new approach to reading and understanding classical Chinese poetry. Included are nearly two hundred regulated verses written by the great poets of the Tang Dynasty, such as Du Fu, Li Bai, Wang Wei, Li Shangyin, and Meng Haoran. For each poem, both traditional and simplified Chinese characters are provided for cross reference. In addition to its literary translation, each poem is given a bilingual annotation with respect to the literal meanings of each key word or phrase. The tone and pinyin transliteration of each Chinese character are also provided. Readers who are familiar with the pinyin system can learn to recite the original poem the way the Chinese read it. This book is designed to help the readers understand Tang poems from a bilingual perspective. It may also be a helpful learning tool for students who want to learn Chinese through poetry.

Genres: Poetry, China

448 pages, Paperback

First published July 31, 2007

Reviews

[Therese L. Broderick · Rating 4 out of 5]

My teenaged nephew gave me this book as a holiday gift. What a contrast between his technology-driven existence and the lives portrayed by these Tang Dynasty writers. Almost everyone in these short, intimate poems is homesick, because almost everyone is far from family -- conscripted for war in distant lands, or obligated to serve the State in remote outposts, or isolated as refugee, monk, aging vagabond. I remind my nephew: there was no e-mail in 900 AD. The only way to send or receive news about loved ones was by human hand, a messenger with a short poem on a piece of paper. This book is a labor of love, a worthy present for any tender-hearted reader.

[Scipio Africanus · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best bi lingual chinese poetry books i have ever seen. 300 poems in Traditional, Simplified, Pinyin, and English