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justaprilann's review against another edition
3.0
3.5 stars / I asked my dad what got him interested in studying Classical Chinese and he gave me this book and its follow up. I really enjoyed the descriptions of nature and the overflowing of emotion, especially love.
scipio_africanus's review against another edition
5.0
If anyone is curious about Chinese or Japanese poetry, I always recommend Kenneth Rexroth's translations as they are beautiful and true to the spirit of the poetry which makes up for his lack of accuracy at times. Having read dozens of books of Chinese and Japanese poetry by various translators, I still come back to his translations again and again. His may be my favorite.
written_word_warrior's review against another edition
lighthearted
reflective
relaxing
fast-paced
4.5
ben_smitty's review against another edition
3.0
"...Ragged mist settles
In the spreading dusk. Snow skurries
In the coiling wind. The wineglass
Is spilled. The bottle is empty..." - Tu Fu
Rexroth does a good job at translating the poets' attentive eye towards nature. The emotions that the poets can arouse by describing their static surroundings is characteristic of East Asian poetry in general. A couple good poems here and there here, especially with Tu Fu and Lu Yu, but overall not memorable to me personally.
In the spreading dusk. Snow skurries
In the coiling wind. The wineglass
Is spilled. The bottle is empty..." - Tu Fu
Rexroth does a good job at translating the poets' attentive eye towards nature. The emotions that the poets can arouse by describing their static surroundings is characteristic of East Asian poetry in general. A couple good poems here and there here, especially with Tu Fu and Lu Yu, but overall not memorable to me personally.
spacestationtrustfund's review against another edition
2.0
This review is of Kenneth Rexroth's translation, not the original poems.
This book is divided into two parts: first, 35 translations of poems by Du Fu, whom Rexroth calls "the greatest non-epic, non dramatic poet who has survived in any language"; second, around 70 translations by various Song dynasty poets—some of whom have only one poem included (Xu Chao), some of whom have many (Mei Yaochen). The table of contents lists the poets' names as such:
In general Rexroth's translations are pretty good at adhering to the overall meaning and purpose of the poem in question. He is a poet primarily and only secondarily a translator. Some have argued that poets make the best translators, being able to produce a more appealing translation in the target language; others maintain that scholars of translation studies and linguistics ought to be given precedence. Ideally I would prefer someone with experience in both fields—a poet's interpretation of one poem may be radically different from a linguist's interpretation of the same—but here, for better or for worse, we have Kenneth Rexroth.
Structurally I found Rexroth's placement of line breaks to be baffling, even distracting at times. In his translation of Du Fu's poem 對雪 ("Snow Storm," as Rexroth says),[3] Rexroth gives us this:
I don't usually believe that an author's or translator's life necessarily factors into the work they produce, but I would like to note that there's one anecdote about Rexroth's life that could be either amusing or disturbing: in 1978 he "translated" a collection of poems allegedly penned by a "young Japanese woman," which he entitled "The Love Poems of Marichiko." It was later discovered that Rexroth himself had written them, pretending to be a Japanese woman. (The poems themselves are quite good, even excellent—my favourite lines are these: "Making love with you / Is like drinking sea water. / The more I drink / The thirstier I become.") Regardless of your opinion on the death of the author (Rexroth is indeed no longer alive), the fact that a white American man pretended, at least to some extent, to be a Japanese woman in order to write erotic poetry is a bit sketch to say the least. Nowadays, that sort of thing is typically known as racefaking, and is generally frowned upon. Personally I think the whole situation is just mildly hilarious, and indeed it's a shame that Rexroth didn't just write erotic fiction from the perspective of a young Japanese couple as he clearly wanted to, particularly since he certainly wrote plenty of erotic poetry already.
//
[1] Admittedly, this anthology was originally published in 1956; the edition I have is from 1971. I suppose it would be difficult for English speakers unacquainted with Chinese naming customs to distinguish between masculine and feminine names, which I'm sure is something that's super necessary for the enjoyment of a poem.
[2] To which culture, I don't deign to say.
[3] These two characters mean "against" and "snow," respectively. Rexroth's title is fine, comparatively speaking; I've seen worse.
[4] I had to dig to find this version, because I only—barely!—read simplified characters.
[5] Here the original gives us battle-weep-many-new-ghost (战哭多新鬼).
[6] This character 尊 [zun] refers to a type of vessel for alcoholic drinks.
[7] "Not green," that is, not new, i.e., old/empty.
[8] Again this poem has no direct pronouns; it can only be inferred that this final line is the poet himself speaking, although it could be also interpreted as, "we sit upright, trying in vain to read our books," among others.
[9] In translation, in this case.
[10] I actually respect Rexroth a hell of a lot for his life-long effort in getting more recognition for women poets in general, as well as specifically non-anglophone poetry translated into English. Whether or not he made up a bunch of poems and pretended he'd translated them into English is a separate discussion.
This book is divided into two parts: first, 35 translations of poems by Du Fu, whom Rexroth calls "the greatest non-epic, non dramatic poet who has survived in any language"; second, around 70 translations by various Song dynasty poets—some of whom have only one poem included (Xu Chao), some of whom have many (Mei Yaochen). The table of contents lists the poets' names as such:
Mei Yao Ch'en, Ou Yang Hsiu, Su Tung P'o, the poetess Li Ch'ing Chao, Lu Yu, Chu Hsi, Hsu Chao, the poetess Chu Shu ChenRight away I found the decision to mention only the female poets' gender off-putting.[1] And again we encounter the dreaded Wade-Giles romanisation! (I will be using pinyin throughout whenever applicable.) Many of these poets' work, particularly that of the Song dynasty poets, has yet to be translated into English; in this aspect Rexroth's translations are culturally important.[2] I will take that into account when evaluating his translations as a whole, because some of them are... well, a bit questionable.
In general Rexroth's translations are pretty good at adhering to the overall meaning and purpose of the poem in question. He is a poet primarily and only secondarily a translator. Some have argued that poets make the best translators, being able to produce a more appealing translation in the target language; others maintain that scholars of translation studies and linguistics ought to be given precedence. Ideally I would prefer someone with experience in both fields—a poet's interpretation of one poem may be radically different from a linguist's interpretation of the same—but here, for better or for worse, we have Kenneth Rexroth.
Structurally I found Rexroth's placement of line breaks to be baffling, even distracting at times. In his translation of Du Fu's poem 對雪 ("Snow Storm," as Rexroth says),[3] Rexroth gives us this:
Tumult, weeping, many new ghosts.This is, in my opinion, a very modern and Western format into which to shape this poem. The line breaks—pardon me—break with the original, cutting up the orderly lines of the original. The translation itself is also quite peculiar. Here is the original,[4] in Traditional Chinese characters:
Heartbroken, aging, alone, I sing
To myself. Ragged mist settles
In the spreading dusk. Snow skurries
In the coiling wind. The wineglass
Is spilled. The bottle is empty.
The fire has gone out in the stove.
Everywhere men speak in whispers.
I brood on the uselessness of letters.
戰哭多新鬼 愁吟獨老翁This particular poem dates from late 756 CE, after an unsuccessful attempt by the government to recapture Chang'an from rebels. Rexroth's translation strips any and all context from the setting of the poem and provides us with a rather watered-down version, only mentioning "tumult, weeping, many new ghosts."[5] Apart from the removal of context, the translation itself is not quite right, with the second and final lines being (in my opinion) the worst. Here's a character-by-character version (translation mine):
亂雲低薄暮 急雪舞回風
瓢棄尊無綠 爐存火似紅
數州消息斷 愁坐正書空
fight / weep / many / new / ghostI am by no means as accomplished a scholar or translator as Rexroth was, but here's my (very rough!) attempt at a translation:
worry / groan / alone / old / old man
unrest / cloud / low / weak / dusk
swift / snow / dance / return / wind
ladle / abandon / bottle 6 / no / green
furnace / retain / fire / like / red
many / state / dispel / news / snap
worry / sit / upright / book / in vain
after the battle many new ghosts weepIf this is how much Rexroth's version differs from the original when it comes to a relatively popular poem by a well-known poet,[9] it doesn't exactly instil confidence in me as to the quality of the translations of the lesser-known poets. There are many other minor errors that add up to be a disappointing whole, such as when Rexroth translates 碧 as grey. That particular character usually refers to a blue-green colour, but can also refer independently to blue (sky, water) or green (forest, mountain, jade). The poem is by Du Fu:
lonely old men worry and grieve
chaotic clouds hang down at the dusk
swift snow dances in turning wind
ladles are discarded and bottles are empty [7]
but the stove still looks fiery red
to many places the news is sent
I [8] sit upright, trying to read my books in vain.
江碧鳥愈白Rexroth's translation:
山青花欲然
今春看又過
何日是帰年
White birds over the grey river.Again, the overall result isn't terrible, certainly not the worst I've ever read. The colour-swapping is mostly an issue in that it removes the contrasting imagery in the first line, the white birds flying over the blue-green river. He also translates 燃 (burn) as "scarlet," which is probably close enough in meaning to let slide. This particular mishap was dissected wonderfully here:
Scarlet flowers on the green hills.
I watch the Spring go by and wonder
If I shall ever return home.
According to the Introduction, the translation was done by some knowledgeable people and checked repeatedly by the Chinese "friends." Oh. We should be concerned.In conclusion, my opinion of Rexroth's work has not changed; the work he did in translating lesser-known poets from Chinese to English was valuable, as well as was his pioneering work in translating numerous Chinese and Japanese women poets who had been previously ignored by translators,[10] and I appreciate him for that, but the overall quality of his translation is strongly lacking in accuracy or understanding of context. Much of this can be attributed to the shortcomings and limitations of the time period, but in any case I believe it's high time for a newer, and hopefully better, translation.
I don't usually believe that an author's or translator's life necessarily factors into the work they produce, but I would like to note that there's one anecdote about Rexroth's life that could be either amusing or disturbing: in 1978 he "translated" a collection of poems allegedly penned by a "young Japanese woman," which he entitled "The Love Poems of Marichiko." It was later discovered that Rexroth himself had written them, pretending to be a Japanese woman. (The poems themselves are quite good, even excellent—my favourite lines are these: "Making love with you / Is like drinking sea water. / The more I drink / The thirstier I become.") Regardless of your opinion on the death of the author (Rexroth is indeed no longer alive), the fact that a white American man pretended, at least to some extent, to be a Japanese woman in order to write erotic poetry is a bit sketch to say the least. Nowadays, that sort of thing is typically known as racefaking, and is generally frowned upon. Personally I think the whole situation is just mildly hilarious, and indeed it's a shame that Rexroth didn't just write erotic fiction from the perspective of a young Japanese couple as he clearly wanted to, particularly since he certainly wrote plenty of erotic poetry already.
//
[1] Admittedly, this anthology was originally published in 1956; the edition I have is from 1971. I suppose it would be difficult for English speakers unacquainted with Chinese naming customs to distinguish between masculine and feminine names, which I'm sure is something that's super necessary for the enjoyment of a poem.
[2] To which culture, I don't deign to say.
[3] These two characters mean "against" and "snow," respectively. Rexroth's title is fine, comparatively speaking; I've seen worse.
[4] I had to dig to find this version, because I only—barely!—read simplified characters.
[5] Here the original gives us battle-weep-many-new-ghost (战哭多新鬼).
[6] This character 尊 [zun] refers to a type of vessel for alcoholic drinks.
[7] "Not green," that is, not new, i.e., old/empty.
[8] Again this poem has no direct pronouns; it can only be inferred that this final line is the poet himself speaking, although it could be also interpreted as, "we sit upright, trying in vain to read our books," among others.
[9] In translation, in this case.
[10] I actually respect Rexroth a hell of a lot for his life-long effort in getting more recognition for women poets in general, as well as specifically non-anglophone poetry translated into English. Whether or not he made up a bunch of poems and pretended he'd translated them into English is a separate discussion.
lucasmiller's review against another edition
5.0
I bought a used copy of this book after reading An American Gospel by Erik Reece. I was familiar, somewhat, with Rexroth from a recording of "Thou Shalt Not Kill" stumbled across during my introduction to Beat writers. The idea of reading ancient-ish Chinese poetry in translation didn't appeal to me, but this book has been an unqualified delight. Read slowly over months, the clearness, stillness, and directness of these poems is moving. So many of them traverse the same ground, the seasons, rhythms of work, and the joys and disappointments of family life. Beginning with 35 poems of Tu Fu, an eighth century poet Rexroth calls the best non-epic, non-dramatic poet preserved in any language, and then jumping to the 11th and 12th century for a review of several Sung Dynasty poets, this collection offers the quotidian and the ancient filtered, often times through European languages and finally into English, into poems exotic and relatable and ultimately intimate and personal while talking about near universal experiences. I will return to this again and again. Highest of recommendations.
lexi_king's review against another edition
adventurous
lighthearted
mysterious
reflective
relaxing
fast-paced
2.25
I liked the some of the poems, some were quite beautiful. However shorter poems like those aren't really my thing I kind of just flew through many without picking anything up.
amythebookbat's review
4.0
This collection of Chinese poetry really appealed to my senses. The imagery was beautiful and I could almost hear the chirping birds and flowing water and smell the blossoming flowers. My favorite grouping was the poems of Tu Fu. These poems were written back in the 700's and still feel fresh today. Most of the other poems in the book were written between 1000-1150 and are well worth the read. Some of the poems had a darkness to them. They oozed melancholy and made it beautiful. I am really glad I picked up this gem and discovered the beauty of the Chinese poets. I would give this collection 4.5 stars.
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