moonscapist's review against another edition
3.0
My interest leans to Li Po more than Tu Fu but contemplating on the period they become renowned poets in China, I could say that Tu Fu's poems are experimental and his style transcends the usual Chinese poetry form (maybe this is the reason why his readers back then tend to misunderstand his craft; hence, dismissing him as queer or challenging the tradition in an unpleasant way) and in it I found a foreign sharpness and beauty.
Introduction and annotations were a big help in understanding the text but sometimes the translator explains too much which, for me, ruins the experience of reading the poems.
Introduction and annotations were a big help in understanding the text but sometimes the translator explains too much which, for me, ruins the experience of reading the poems.
spacestationtrustfund's review against another edition
3.0
The translations themselves are not great, but the introduction, annotations, and appendices—which occupy the majority of the page count—are a veritable wealth of interesting information. The romanisation system is Wade-Giles, my old enemy, which is needlessly complicated and no one should ever use it, but it's fine (this is pretty funny when the translator Arthur Cooper says something like, "Some names, like ... Peking, I spell in the most usual way," which is obviously no longer "usual" by most if not all standards). And then there's stuff like this:
English translations of Chinese poetry are still recovering from the damage caused by Ezra Pound and, although Arthur Cooper doesn't directly criticise Pound's truly terrible bastardisations of Chinese poetry, he does call them "sometimes very free or even haphazard," mentioning specifically a particular poem which "consists of two quite different poems by Li Po run accidentally together with the title of the second incorporated in the midst of it." (Cooper also alludes to Pound's being "guided only by his own excellent ear," which I found quite silly, considering that Pound himself admitted, three years after publishing Cathay, "When I did Cathay, I had no inkling of the techniques of sound, which I am now convinced must exist or have existed in Chinese poetry." Excellent ear, my ass.)
Another excerpt I thought was interesting:
Li Po (or Li T’ai–Po) and Tu Fu are seen by the Chinese as the two greatest poets of an age that to them, like our Renaissance, links the ancient with the modern world. The two poets were contemporaries and friends and shared a deep love of the poetry of the past, but were widely different in their own character and work. Yet they complemented one another so well that they came often to be spoken of as one, ‘Li-Tu,’ who, more than any single poet, covered the whole range of human nature.which is pretty gay if you ask me. But I digress. Well, not really; the introduction spends a good while explaining how Li Bai and Du Fu were the yin to each other's yang, and I do mean that literally, that's what it actually says. Do you think Li Bai and Du Fu ever explored each other's bodies? Okay, okay, I'll stop. But seriously.
English translations of Chinese poetry are still recovering from the damage caused by Ezra Pound and, although Arthur Cooper doesn't directly criticise Pound's truly terrible bastardisations of Chinese poetry, he does call them "sometimes very free or even haphazard," mentioning specifically a particular poem which "consists of two quite different poems by Li Po run accidentally together with the title of the second incorporated in the midst of it." (Cooper also alludes to Pound's being "guided only by his own excellent ear," which I found quite silly, considering that Pound himself admitted, three years after publishing Cathay, "When I did Cathay, I had no inkling of the techniques of sound, which I am now convinced must exist or have existed in Chinese poetry." Excellent ear, my ass.)
Another excerpt I thought was interesting:
Chinese poetry tends to be in the most concise and so most generalized form of the Chinese language; which is not the same as ‘vague,’ but is such as to achieve vividness by giving greatest freedom to the reader’s own imagination—in a scene that the poet himself has set. Something similar can also be observed in Chinese painting, which does not so much invite the viewer to take the artist’s seat as to take his own walk in the landscape.One rather unintentionally amusing note is when Cooper says, "No Chinese language, in a literature of over 3,000 years, looks or has to be made to sound archaic in quite the same way as Chaucer does to us, though he wrote a mere 600 years ago," which is simply incorrect. What about the simplification of characters from their traditional form? What about pronunciation changes comparable to the Great Vowel Shift in the English language? What about the transition from classical Chinese into vernacular? What about the mutual intelligibility between local languages in pre-modern China, meaning that literature composed in the north would be incomprehensible to people in the south? Do none of those instances count? There are both written and spoken examples. And Chaucer's English is hardly incomprehensible to most modern readers, especially when spoken aloud.
While a translator is only wasting his time if he adopts the defeatist attitude (which some think acknowledges no more than the truth) that great poetry cannot be translated, he must agree that the translation inevitably entails great losses; and endeavour to cut the losses by being prepared to accept some of them.Well, yes, it's kind of silly for a translator of poetry to claim that poetry can't be translated; the reality is that poetry can't be accurately translated. That's my personal perspective on the problem, although I wouldn't call it defeatist but rather the furthest thing from it: poetry is fundamentally untranslatable, and yet we endeavour to translate it anyway. What could be less defeatist than that?
jessicaminster's review against another edition
2.0
Unfortunately my adventurous purchase of this book was not paid back by amazing poetry. Perhaps it is time that has made the poems largely lack the luster they are promised to emit, or maybe it's culture clash or a faulty translation. I doubt the last two, because the translator of this book gives extensive notes to almost all of the poems to explain them and interpret them to some extent-- not to mention the almost half of the book that is just the translator's introduction. Also, I read the Tao Te Ching earlier this year and was blown away by it, even though it was written many centuries before these poems.
There are a few standouts here, the three best ones in my eyes are "Old Poem" by Li Po and "The Visitor" and "Night Thoughts Afloat" by Tu Fu.
There are a few standouts here, the three best ones in my eyes are "Old Poem" by Li Po and "The Visitor" and "Night Thoughts Afloat" by Tu Fu.
partypete's review against another edition
5.0
turned me on to chinese poetry. the descriptions between the poems can be extremely informative for developing context, but are occasionally problematic. obviously there is only so much I can glean from poetry that is dependent on history and references outside of my knowledge base, but this is an excellent primer for the history of the Tang Dynasty and the lives lived in it.
jokoloyo's review against another edition
4.0
Actually I didn't rate the classic poems from considered two Chinese greatest poets. I rated the translation project. I like the 100+ pages introductions before the book showed the first poem. And even then, on poems themselves, the translator added some short descriptions too. I think the lengthy introductions is appropriate for introductory purpose of the poets. Please remember that this book published for the first time on pre-internet era.
There are only 100+ poems on this book, far from complete collections, even counting the surviving texts only.
There are only 100+ poems on this book, far from complete collections, even counting the surviving texts only.
annewithabook's review against another edition
4.0
I'm not a massive fan of poetry in general, but I do love Chinese history. For me, the poems weren't as interesting as the explanation of them. Li Po and Tu Fu were definitely men of their time, as it was common for scholars to try their hand at poetry. And some of their poems are really interesting, painting a picture of both how life was during the Tang Dynasty as well as how differently they each saw the world. Li Po takes a more cynical view of the world, whereas Tu Fu seems to be more flowery in his writing. It's a fun book to read, both if you like poetry and if you're interested in Chinese history.
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