Customer Reviews

Treasury of Chinese Love Poems (Hippocrene Treasury of Love)

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The authenticity and sensitivity with which all poems in this collection are rendered is quite obvious to a bilingual reader like me. Majority of the poems selected here have long been translated into English, mostly by academics whose emphases tend to be on the literal truthfulness to the text and the Chinese poetic tradition, but, inevitably, at the expense of the ?poetic quality? of the oeuvres. This book diverges from that path and is primarily concerned with the sensibilities and textures of the poems. They are rendered as poetry first and then as Chinese poetry with its distinct conventions. Unlike its predecessors that serve well the scholarly concerns about Chinese poetics as contrasted to or compared with the Western one, this album, put together principally for everyday poetry lovers, strives for the commonality of poetry across diverse traditions. It opens doors for untutored readers to the beauty and delicacy in Chinese poetry, which, under different translation treatments, may have appeared to be too foreign and stiff. For those inspired ones who contemplate further ventures, Robert Hegel?s introduction is an excellent guide to further exploration of the history and conventions that are unique to Chinese poetry.

Anyone who loves China will enjoy the poetry included in this small volume. The sketches are lovely and the author has included the original Chinese version as well as a delightful English version. Also included is the author and the time period it was written.

I do not know Chinese but these poems are well selected across centuries, and the translations are as readable as the best (Ezra Pound's) I have seen.