How to Read A Chinese Poem: A Bilingual Anthology of Tang Poetry Paperback – July 31, 2007

I've been studying Chinese for the last two years. I've gone to China for the last two summers. Now that I'm feeling decently comfortable with Mandarin, I've been diving into Classical Chinese. This anthology has been an amazing tool: both the simplified and traditional characters are listed; the complete pinyin is listed; the literal translations are underneath the characters so we can see what artistic license the translator, Edward Chang, takes; it contains useful annotations for the more erudite historical and cultural allusions; and it has markings showing how the rhythm constricts itself to the restrictions of the poetic form.Not only have I been able to name-drop the big Tang poets -- Li Bai, Wang Wei, Du Mu, Du Fu -- but I can quote verse from memory. This has, exceedingly so, been its greatest value. I can relish the sounds of the poem. As the introduction points out, Chinese poetry, like essentially all poetry, is meant to be read aloud, in many cases even chanted. With even just a cursory knowledge of pinyin and the Chinese tonal system, one can recite and hear the words spoken by sagacious court-scholars 1300 years ago.Translating Chinese is difficult. Translating Classical basically involves writing poetry with a loose template. More avant garde translators attempt to "modernize" the content through familiar structures and diction, but Chang stays faithful and accurate to the form. For certain poems, some translators handle certain problems (such as the brevity or ambiguity of part-of-speech) better than Chang, but not many. Chang's translations here are some of the most consistently solid renditions I've seen. And if you're displeased by the result, you can attempt to construct your own version with the literal translations found under the characters. Overall, this is a must-have for anyone interested either in Chinese poetry or the Chinese language.

This really is a how to book, but a more complete title would be 'How to Read a Chinese Poems as the Chinese Read them.' Because with just a rudimentary understanding of romanized pinyin, a reader is able to experiance the euphonious quality of Chinese verse from the Tang period(618-907). English translations starting in the last century have made these poems popular with modern readers,because these 1,200 year old verses are more compatible with contemporary poetic sensebilities than Europeon sagas and romances written at the same time and all western verse untill the romantic movement. Despite the problems of conveying meaning from the tenseless ambivalence of Chinese to the regimented structure of English, some translations have carried much of the original thrust of the poems, minus nuances, across centuries and grammars and reshaped them into English poetry. But no translation can transport the lyric rhythems of the tonal patterns across the language barriers. This book sidesteps the barriers making Tang cadences accesible to many more. Having enjoyed Chinese poetry from translations,and wanting to find out about the original poems, but having a very limited knowledge of Chinese characters, I looked for books with literal word by word translations. 'Chinese Poetry' edited and translated by Wan-Lim Yip seems to give the most straightforward word for word transcription. Reading the actual loose ambiguous syntax of Tang poetry gives the poems a boundless feel. Its only shortcoming is there is no clues to the poem's intonations. This book rectifies that omission bypassing the language barrier giving us Tang music through a readable romanization and a concise and clear introduction explains the poetic rules of the time. Beware the rhythems are enticing and might lead to an addictive urge to learn Chinese.

For one thing this book is slightly mislabelled. It's a crib and a translation of the famous anthology _ 300 Tang Poems _ / _ Tang Shi San Bai Shou _. It gives the pronunciation in modern Mandarin of every single character in every single poem so that even those who don't know any Chinese, or like me know only a few characters, can appreciate the sound of the poems. No one else has ever done this and the editor is certainly to be praised and thanked for doing such a superb job. I truly hate to be ungracious but the editor chose to follow the traditional order of the anthology, by genre rather than by poet. So if you want to read all the poems of Tu Fu or Li Bo or Wang Wei you have to hunt for them. I think a much better order would have been by poet. Further, the notes about the poet are quite meagre, totally unlike Kenneth Rexroth's masterful essays in his translations.

This is the third book introducing Chinese poetry that I've bought (How to Read Chinese Poetry by Zong-qi Cai and Chinese Through Poetry by Archie Barnes were the other two). Since the other two were so insightful, both in introducing Chinese verse as well as translation of said verse, I had high hopes for this book. I was disappointed.The title is terribly misleading. In a far too brief introduction the author gives very little information about how to actually read a Chinese poem. Granted, the he does explain (somewhat) poetic form, but there is no explanation of commonly used symbols or themes in Chinese poetry (the significance of 'parting poems', what spring or autumn or different flowers usually represent, these kinds of things), something that, if a reader knows, greatly enhances appreciation.To his credit though all the Chinese characters and pinyin (romanization) are included. Cool bonus if you can read Chinese. If you can't, beware. I found there were no few mistakes in the tone placed over the words. I've read through 2/3 of the book and come across a number of tones that are mislabelled.On top of this, the translations are stale and sometimes seem more forced together than IKEA furniture (not that I don't like IKEA..). If one really wants to "learn how to read a Chinese poem" I would suggest checking out Archie Barnes' Chinese Through Poetry. Though he adds lots of exercises to his book, you'll actually learn how to read a Chines poem by the end of it.

Pretty well perfect introduction to Tang poetry -- each poem's text is given in traditional and simplified characters, with pinyin romanization, English translation, then on facing page a character-by-character analysis with literal translation. Book includes around 200 poems, short biographies, and a good introduction. If you can get hold of Kroll's DICTIONARY OF CLASSICAL AND MEDIEVAL CHINESE as well, then you can have your own course in Classical Chinese poetry. (And Archie Barnes's CHINESE THROUGH POETRY.)

As a student of Mandarin, I found this book to be an immensely interesting and useful introduction to Chinese poetry. Both traditional and modern characters and pinyin tone forms are given as well as English translation. The special tone patterns are well explained, so that you can more easily try to write your own poems using these as a guide.

Truly wonderful. Great introduction introducing the rule system poets followed and then emphasizes these rules throughout in each example. Poem given in simplified and traditional, stand alone and then broken down with pinyin and tones. Wonderful translations and great footnotes for cultural context. Cannot rate highly enough.

Buen libro con un montoN de poemas. Lo recomiendo usarlo con "chinese through poetry". Va la pena. Pli pla n