Customer Reviews

The New Directions Anthology of Classical Chinese Poetry

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The rediscovery of Greek and Roman literature kickstarted the Renaissance in Europe. In a similar way, though on a somewhat smaller scale, the conveniently Imagist makeover of Chinese poetry by Ezra Pound and Amy Lowell undoubtedly had a seismic and far-reaching effect on later 20th century American poetry. In his learned Introduction to this outstanding and indispensable Anthology, Weinberger traces the many subsequent debts owed by a galaxy of fine American poets to that seminal work of re-invention. Such impressively talented scholar-translators as Burton Watson, J. P Seaton, Jonathan Chaves and several others receive an honourable mention, though their work is well anthologised elsewhere, and Weinberger's brief seems to have been only to include full-time poets: with the possible exception of Hinton, that is. (However, Sam Hamill's, Arthur Sze's and David Young's names have inexplicably been left out: all three of them marvellous contemporary re-interpreters of the classical Chinese tradition, and all three fine poets in their own right.)

Weinberger concentrates in particular on five exemplary writers: Ezra Pound himself, William Carlos Williams, Kenneth Rexroth, Gary Snyder, and David Hinton. They are certainly all major figures, and it's useful to have them grouped together in this way (particular since the last of them diverges in such interesting ways from the Imagist 'Less is More' tradition: though he certainly 'makes it new' in accordance with that central dictum, which is even quoted in the original Chinese characters both on the cover and on the titlepage).

I thought I already knew quite a lot about American translators from classical Chinese---a whole shelf of mine already groans under their weight---but the William Carlos Williams renderings were entirely new to me, and so were some of the later Pound translations.

For this reader it's hard to contain his excitement at such a beautifully produced edition (only spoiled by a spine-label that's somehow been glued on upside down), and I recommend anyone interested in either recent American poetry or in the classical Chinese tradition to go out and buy it straight away. It will admirably complement Minford and Lau's recent historical anthology of all translations (both European and American, and both scholarly and 'creative'), which of course covers a much broader range, but which is similarly ground-breaking and enthralling to read.

This is a superb anthology several times over. First and foremost, it brings together in one book several centuries of the finest classical poetry from China, starting at the beginning with selections from "The Book of Odes" and drawing a finish line at the end of the Sung Dynasty in 1279. Pretty much all the major poets from the T'ang and Sung are represented here along with earlier masters like T'ao Ch'ien and many interesting lesser-known figures throughout. And in line with New Directions' general attitude that poems should sound like poems, the translations here all flow musically and ring harmoniously in the mind's ear.

Still, there are many other excellent anthologies of Chinese poetry as well. What really distinguishes this one is that all five of the translators are accomplished American poets in their own right. Here we find the eccentric, wildly inaccurate and yet sometimes intuitively ingenious renderings by Ezra Pound, the tersely colloquial if likewise linguistically careless versions by William Carlos Williams, the sensitive and quietly subtle though pretty much reliable verses by Kenneth Rexroth, the deeply spiritual explorations of nature with a counter-cultural edge by Gary Snyder, and finally the translations of David Hinton which alchemically combine poetic sensibility and academic acumen in a proper balance. All in one anthology.

Much more than a mere continuum of accuracy (from less to more) is to be found here, though. Looking only through the somewhat eccentric gaze of these five poet-translators also makes this book something of a history of American literature's long engagement and fascination with the Chinese poetic tradition and, more specifically, of that tradition's influence and impact on modern American poetry itself--a payoff supplemented by the editor's fine introduction discussing this phenomenon in some detail as well as rare, hard-to-find essays by the poets themselves on the subject. Taking this unusual tack also makes this book a study in the undeniably haphazard art of translation itself, for the editor frequently includes different translations of the same poem--seeing how Ezra Pound and Gary Snyder both interpreted and rendered the same original into very different English versions is pretty instructive and enlightening. In one case we are even shown how Kenneth Rexroth translated the same poems quite differently over time, once in 1956 and again in 1970. Personally I found this to be a fascinating highlight really distinctive if not utterly unique to this anthology.

So whether your primary interest is in Classical Chinese poetry or Modernist American poetry, this anthology is a modern classic in and of itself. And if you happen to be intrigued by how these two traditions interacted and entangled themselves in one of the great cultural interactions of human history, this is an indispensable book for your collection.