Customer Reviews

100 Poems from Tang and Song Dynasties

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What a beautiful gift this book would make! Being selfish, I gave it to myself.

Each poem faces a reproduction of an ancient Chinese painting: awe-inspiring landscapes, luscious flowers, sad beauties, lone travelers. The illustrations tend to reinforce the mood of the poems, and this is important.

After all, in translating a poem from Chinese to English, there's really no way to convey the rhymes, rhythm and rising and falling cadences of the original. What can be conveyed are emotions, reflections and imagery.

There's a charming introduction assuring us that "we have confidence in Mr. Qui's translation." I do, too! Qiu Xiaolong is the author of a series of fabulous contemporary Chinese mysteries featuring a detective who loves classical Chinese poetry. I've read all the books with relish. Mr. Qui is an astute student of human nature and a fine writer.

But getting back to these poems, the collection includes Tang poems from the Golden Age of Chinese poetry and Song lyric poems written to be sung to popular melodies. Tang dates from 618 to 907, and Song from 960 to 1279, in case you need to be reminded (I always do).

There are evocative descriptions of landscapes, but plenty of human interest as well: singing girls and virtuous wives, elusive recluses and carousing poets, husbands with wanderlust and wives wondering when they'll come home.

And on page 161 I encountered the most delightful erotic poem - its import achieved obliquely with sly sensual symbolism.

If you read Chinese, you can enjoy each poem in the original Chinese characters, appearing above the translation.

The book is gorgeously produced, yet of a modest size pleasant to hold. I recommend it highly.

It's a beautiful book of poetry from the Song and Tang Dynasties - two dynasties from the height of Chinese culture. One could wish that even more was included.