Poems of the Masters : China's Classic Anthology of T'ang and Sung Dynasty Verse

Rating:
Summary: A splendid translation and collection of poems
Review: Red Pine (Bill Porter) has beautifully translated this important collection of Chinese verse. His commentaries, too, are well worth reading.

This book would be an excellent text for those who wish to learn to read T'ang and Sung poetry, and classical literary Chinese in general. The Chinese and English poems are presented on facing pages. Each poem is sufficiently brief to allow students the opportunity to (begin to) learn a complete work of literature without the intimidation that can accompany larger texts -- and there are 224 such poems in this translation, which gives ample scope for learning in nice, easy steps. (Of course this will have to be done using a dictionary like Mathews', and the student will need some familiarity with looking characters up by radical -- this is not a teaching text with a glossary and explanatory notes about language usage.)

Even if one does not desire to use this collection to learn Chinese, the English translations are certainly beautiful poems in their own right, and are worth spending time with. And meanwhile, the Chinese texts are always there, extending a gentle invitation to the curious.

Surely every lover of Chinese (and English!) poetry will treasure this book.

Rating:
Summary: Beautiful translation
Review: Red Pine's translation of the Ch'ienchiashih is quite impressive. I've found too many translations from Chinese that are overdone, full of themselves; here is a volume of clear, elegant poetry. Even a beginning Chinese language student can follow along and understand the original text, his translation is so well constructed. And yet these 224 poems lose nothing of their poetic quality.

The poems are presented with the Chinese facing the English, with biographical and relevant explanatory notes accompanying each. Includes preface (definitely worth reading), map (very helpful for following some of the more prolific poets), and Tang/Song timeline. This has very quickly become my favourite book of translations.