The New Directions Anthology of Classical Chinese Poetry
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The New Directions Anthology of Classical Chinese Poetry
by Authors:
Eliot Weinberger , William Carlos Williams , Ezra Pound , Kenneth Rexroth , Gary Snyder , David Hinton
Released: April, 2003
ISBN: 0811215407
Hardcover
Sales Rank: 54,330
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List price:
$24.95
Our price:
$17.47
(You save: $7.48)
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Book > The New Directions Anthology of Classical Chinese Poetry > Customer Reviews:
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Average Customer Rating: 
The New Directions Anthology of Classical Chinese Poetry >
Customer Review #1:
Making It New
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 Hamills, Arthur Szes and David Youngs 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 its 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 Moretradition: 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 its hard to contain his excitement at such a beautifully produced edition (only spoiled by a spine-label thats 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 Laus 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.
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The New Directions Anthology of Classical Chinese Poetry >
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