An Introduction to Chinese Poetry: From the Canon of Poetry to the Lyrics of the Song Dynasty

✍ Scribed by Michael A. Fuller

• Publisher: Harvard University Asia Center
• Year: 2018
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 496
• Series: Harvard East Asian Monographs
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

This innovative textbook for learning classical Chinese poetry moves beyond the traditional anthology of poems translated into English and instead brings readers—including those with no knowledge of Chinese—as close as possible to the texture of the poems in their original language. The first two chapters introduce the features of classical Chinese that are important for poetry and then survey the formal and rhetorical conventions of classical poetry. The core chapters present the major poets and poems of the Chinese poetic tradition from earliest times to the lyrics of the Song Dynasty (960–1279).
Each chapter begins with an overview of the historical context for the poetry of a particular period and provides a brief biography for each poet. Each of the poems appears in the original Chinese with a word-by-word translation, followed by Michael A. Fuller’s unadorned translation, and a more polished version by modern translators. A question-based study guide highlights the important issues in reading and understanding each particular text.
Designed for classroom use and for self-study, the textbook’s goal is to help the reader appreciate both the distinctive voices of the major writers in the Chinese poetic tradition and the grand contours of the development of that tradition.

✦ Table of Contents

Copyright
Contents
Author’s Note
How to Use This Book
Chronology
List of Terms
01 The Classical Chinese Language
02 The Formal and Rhetorical Features of Chinese Poetry
Interlude: On the Translation of Poetry
03 Origins of the Poetic Tradition
04 Poetry in the Han, Wei, and Jin Dynasties
05 The Maturing of Convention: The Poetry of the Northern and Southern Dynasties
06 Early and High Tang Poetry before Du Fu
07 Du Fu
08 Middle and Late Tang Poetry
09 The Growth of a New Poetic Form: The Song Lyric
10 The Song Lyric in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries
Appendix I - List of Poems, Sources, and Translators
Appendix II - List of Variant Characters
Suggested Readings
Permissions