How to Read Chinese Poetry: A Guided Anthology

How to Read Chinese Literature

by Zong-Qi Cai (Editor)

In this guided anthology, experts lead students through the major genres and eras of Chinese poetry from antiquity to the modern time. The volume is divided into 6 chronological sections and features more than 140 examples of the best shi, sao, fu, ci, and qu poems. A comprehensive introduction and extensive thematic table of contents highlight the thematic, formal, and prosodic features of Chinese poetry, and each chapter is written by a scholar who specializes in a particular period or genre. Poems are presented in Chinese and English and are accompanied by a tone-marked romanized version, an explanation of Chinese linguistic and poetic conventions, and recommended reading strategies. Sound recordings of the poems are available online free of charge. These unique features facilitate an intense engagement with Chinese poetical texts and help the reader derive aesthetic pleasure and insight from these works as one could from the original.

The companion volume How to Read Chinese Poetry Workbook presents 100 famous poems (56 are new selections) in Chinese, English, and romanization, accompanied by prose translation, textual notes, commentaries, and recordings.

Contributors: Robert Ashmore (Univ. of California, Berkeley); Zong-qi Cai; Charles Egan (San Francisco State); Ronald Egan (Univ. of California, Santa Barbara); Grace Fong (McGill); David R. Knechtges (Univ. of Washington); Xinda Lian (Denison); Shuen-fu Lin (Univ. of Michigan); William H. Nienhauser Jr. (Univ. of Wisconsin); Maija Bell Samei; Jui-lung Su (National Univ. of Singapore); Wendy Swartz (Columbia); Xiaofei Tian (Harvard); Paula Varsano (Univ. of California, Berkeley); Fusheng Wu (Univ. of Utah)

Genres: Poetry, China, Nonfiction, Linguistics, Language, Anthologies, Reference

426 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2007

Reviews

[Oliver Ho · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting book but I think it might be aimed more at students of Chinese language and literature, rather than a layperson like me. It felt quite academic at times, and was a bit of a slog to get through. Regardless, it's still a good introduction to classical Chinese poetry and it offers insights into the historical contexts, development and interpretation of the poems. In particular, I appreciated the word-for-word translations that accompanied most of the poems, along with a more standard translation. These showed the difficulty of translation, and led me to another book I would like to read, called, "19 Ways of Looking at Wang Wei," which takes a short poem and demonstrates how it can be interpreted and translated at least 19 different ways. I will probably dip into this anthology again from time to time.

[Stan Murai · Rating 4 out of 5]

Since I have a working knowledge of Chinese and
Japanese, I used to compare the original Chinese
text to the translation of any Chinese poetry that
I was reading. I often felt something was lacking in
the translation since the sources for the Chinese texts
were generally included accompanying aids, like
annotations, commentaries, background information
on the poem and author, plus a paraphrase in modern
Chinese or Japanese. Most Chinese or Japanese collections
of Chinese poems are like the well-known study aids
Cliff Notes with all kinds of helpful information for
understanding poems.

This "guided" anthology, edited by Professor Zong-Qi Cai
is a collection of essays by experts who guide students
through the major genres and eras of Chinese poetry from
ancient to relatively the modern times. The book is divided
into 6 chronological sections and includes more than 140
examples of the best poems in various styles (shi, sao, fu, ci,
and qu poems). It is a comprehensive introduction to the
thematic, formal, and prosodic features of Chinese poetry.
Each chapter is written by a scholar with a specialty in a
particular period or genre. The poems are presented in
Chinese and English, accompanied by a tone-marked
romanized version with an explanation of Chinese
linguistic and poetic conventions, and recommended
strategies for reading the poems. Sound recordings of the
poems are available online free of charge. This book
fulfills a real need for tools to understand the Chinese
poetic tradition. The kind of information accompanying
each poem is much like the notes that appear in Chinese and
Japanese anthologies of poems. It also helps dispel certain
myths about Chinese poetry and the written language that
are commonly held because of Ezra Pound and Ernest
Fenollosa, who lacked any real knowledge of Chinese
in spite of the success of their translations. They were
impressed by features such as the iconicity of the ideograms
which are really only a very small part of the
written language and have little effect on the production
of the actual poems.

[Blake · Rating 4 out of 5]

For someone who has tried to approach Chinese poetry through sluggish and posturing academic works (Stephen Owen, no offence), this volume is a nice departure from all that. It is written with purpose and clarity, never assuming the reader knows obscure poetic terminology or needs to hear about poetry through overly-poetic language. It looks at the social, the historical, the philosophical, the grammatical and stylistic parts of each poem, poet, and poetic movement. Especially helpful is the introduction, an overview of the history of Chinese poetry with some discussion of the major forms and themes.

[Jared · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you've been reading lots of Classical Chinese Poetry in translation (as I have) this book is totally fascinating, and gives you a comprehensive technical understanding of forms and genres. If you're into technique, this'll really change the way you think about, for example, how syntactic parallelism can create relationships in a pretty non-metaphoric way. Also really helps you understand the challenges of translation, helps you read translations with a clearer sense of how the original forms operate (and are pretty difficult to translate literally). It's totally technical!

[Anders · Rating 4 out of 5]

Extremely thorough in breadth and depth, and an excellent place to start for those wishing to work towards an understanding of this mind-bogglingly rich subject.
As it can be highly technical at times, and unavoidably caters to those with some Chinese ability, it works best either as a slow, careful read-through taking notes or as a multilayered reference source for historical background, verse technique and cultural reference points not readily apparent to the untrained barbarian.

[Michael Pratt · Rating 5 out of 5]

This volume is an essential reference for any student of Chinese--or simply any poetry lover--interested in how Chinese verse works. The recordings of the anthologized poems which can be downloaded for free from the publisher's website are an added benefit. I cannot recommend this marvelous and enlightening book too strongly.