Rexroth, Kenneth
(South Bend, Ind. 1905-1982 Santa Barbara, Calif.) : Dichter, Literaturkritiker, Essayist
[The books of Rexroth are under copyright by New Directions. In the databse are all thr titles and authors of Chinese poems and online poems]..
[There are no translations from his poems in Chinese until 2014].
[The books of Rexroth are under copyright by New Directions. In the databse are all thr titles and authors of Chinese poems and online poems]..
[There are no translations from his poems in Chinese until 2014].
Subjects
Index of Names : Occident
/
Literature : Occident : United States of America
Chronology Entries (13)
| # | Year | Text | Linked Data |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1955-1979 |
Kenneth Rexroth and China : general. Quellen : Anthologie raisonnée de la littérature chinoise. [Ed. par] G[eorges] Margouliès [ID D7077]. Ayscough, Florence. Travels of a Chinese poet Tu Fu [ID D32199]. Ayscough, Florence. Tu Fu : the autobiography of a Chinese poet, A.D. 712 [ID D10473]. Cent quatrains des T'ang. Trad. du chinois par Lo Ta-kang [Luo Dagang] [ID D32200]. Du, Fu. Du Du xin jie. (Beijing : Zhonghua shu ju, 1961). 讀杜心解 Du, Fu. Du shi jing quan. (Taipei : Yi wen yin shu guan, 1971). 杜詩鏡銓 Hervey de Saint-Denys, Léon. Poésies de l'époque des Thang [ID D2216]. Hung, William. Du shi yin de = A concordance to the poems of Tu Fu. Vol. 2. [ID D10218]. Hung, William. Tu Fu : China’s greatest poet [ID D10264]. Mathews, R[obert] H[enry]. A Chinese-English dictionary dictionary [ID D8646]. Payne, Robert. The white pony [ID D32201]. Florilège des poèmes Song, 960-1277 après J.-C. Traduit du chinois par George Soulié de Morant [ID D7180]. Tu, Fu [Du, Fu]. Gedichte. Übersetzt von Erwin von Zach [ID D4951]. Sekundärliteratur 1984 Ling Chung : Kenneth Rexroth has never taken any formal lessons in the Chinese language. He has perceived an important aspect of Chinese poetics. Chinese landscape poetry often presents nature in its pure, original forms, and the interference of the poet's subjective consciousness is reduced to a minimum. As a result, the reader is brought to a closer contact with nature itself and is put in a state of mind quite similar to being placed in what Rexroth called a 'poetic situation'. He not only applies this rule to the writing of his own poetry, but also to the translation of Chinese poetry. 1988 Shu Yunzhong : Kenneth Rexroth not only translated and imitated Chinese poetry conscientiously but also argued strongly for the merit of Chinese literature in his literary criticism. As a poet, he repeatedly admitted he had saturated himself with Chinese poetry for decades, especially with the poetry of Du Fu. Rexroth's deviation from the original poem in both his translation and imitation of Chinese poetry is contextual and cultural rather than textual. More significantly, because of Rexroth's influence in contemporary American literature, study in this line can further lead us to understand how classical Chinese poetry was adapted to the contemporary American literary milieu. Underlying Rexroth's poetry and translation is the central concept of 'communion'. This concept to Rexroth means a sensual, personal relationship between human beings. Poetry, including translation of poetry, is an expression of embodiment of this communion. Rexroth was an indefatigable critic of the conformist impulses that dominate the contemporary world. Influenced by an existentialist concept of alienation, he thought that in contemporary society human beings become more like things than persons, and the individual, as a result of his alienation from other human beings as well as from himself, loses himself in the end. Poetry, it seems to him, is a remedy that can deliver people from this plight. Rexroth finds that Chinese literature, especially Chinese classical poetry, is very much to his taste because it possesses many characteristics which fit into his concept of 'communion'. The most important characteristic in Chinese poetry, it seems to him, is its humanness. The Chinese philosophers Rexroth liked to talk about are Laozi and Zhuangzi. At first it seems that this is because these two Taoist philosophers deal with the concept of communion in their writings. In Rexroth's poetry the universe does not have its own meaning without human intervention. Ironically, he thinks this is a genrally held idea in Chinese culture. Once we realize the separation between man and the universe in Rexroth's poetry, we can better understand his cosmology which, at first glance, seems to bear some resemblance to Taoism because he sometimes uses Taoist terminology. We may conclude that Rexroth's understanding of classical Chinese poetry is based on his central concept of 'communion', which is conditioned by his Western cultural heritage as well as by a perception of existential need in the contemporary social situation. Therefore his deviation from the Chinese original texts in both his translation and imitation of classical Chinese poetry should be explained in terms of his social milieu, personal philosophy and political learning. 2004 Lucas Klein : Every life in poetry is in some ways a development of a voice, and aesthetic identity that marks a poem as written by a certain poet. Even when poets actively rebel against the limits of a single unity, they are nonetheless working within the confines this voice entails. For Rexroth, whose stylistic shifts are soft and whose aesthetic is remarkably steady throughout his poetic career, each poem can illuminate all other poems in a cross-referencing art of light, as each poem benefits from the creation of the context to which it contributes. The reader who approaches this oeuvre is then granted a full view, and my task has been to show how, via prose and translation and notes, Du Fu and Li Qingzhao constitute a significant portion of Rexroth's complete aesthetic context. The key works are sensibility, sexuality, and spirituality. In focusing on these elements in the poetry of Du Fu and Li Qingzhao, Rexroth in turn shifts the focus into these elements within his own poetry. For Rexroth, and for the development of his poetics, the focal point of his contextual arc is his sensibility – his nervous system as completely open as Du Fu's – towards the combination of the sexual and the spritiual, creating a body of work whose love poems are, like those of Li Qingzhao, actually mystical. |
|
| 2 | 1956 |
Rexroth, Kenneth. One hundred poems from the Chinese [ID D29176]. Kenneth Rexroth : "I have had the words of Tu Fu by me since adolescence and over the years have come to know these poems better than most of my own ". "Tu Fu is, in my opinion, and in the opinion of a majority of those qualified to speak, the greatest non epic, non-dramatic poet who has survived in any language ". "I have chosen only those poems whose appeal is simple and direct, with a minimum of allusion to past literature or contemporary politics, in other words, poems that speak to me of situations in life like my own. I have thought of my translations as, finally, expressions of myself ". Tu, Fu = Du, Fu (Gongxian, Henan 712-770) Banquet at the Tso Family Manor "The windy forest is checkered By the light of the setting, Waning moon. I tune the lute, Its strings are moist with dew. The brook flows in the darkness Below the flower path. The thatched Roof is crowned with constellations. As we write the candles burn short. Our wits grow sharp as swords while The wine goes round. When the poem Contest is ended, someone Sings a song of the South. And I think of my little boat, And long to be on my way." Written on the Wall at Chang’s Hermitage "It is Spring in the mountains. I come alone seeking you. The sound of chopping wood echoes Between the silent peaks. The streams are still icy. There is snow on the trail. At sunset I reach your grove In the stony mountain pass. You want nothing, although at night You can see the aura of gold And silver ore all around you. You have learned to be gentle As the mountain deer you have tamed. The way back forgotten, hidden Away, I become like you, An empty boat, floating, adrift." Winter Dawn "The men and beasts of the zodiac Have marched over us once more. Green wine bottles and red lobster shells, Both emptied, litter the table. "Should auld acquaintance be forgot?" Each Sits listening to his own thoughts, And the sound of cars starting outside. The birds in the eaves are restless, Because of the noise and light. Soon now In the winter dawn I will face My fortieth year. Borne headlong Towards the long shadows of sunset By the headstrong, stubborn moments, Life whirls past like drunken wildfire." Snow Storm Visiting Ts'an, Abbot of Ta-Yun Moon Festival Jade Flower Palace "The stream swirls. The wind moans in The pines. Grey rats scurry over Broken tiles. What prince, long ago, Built this palace, standing in Ruins beside the cliffs? There are Green ghost fires in the black rooms. The shattered pavements are all Washed away. Ten thousand organ Pipes whistle and roar. The storm Scatters the red autumn leaves. His dancing girls are yellow dust. Their painted cheeks have crumbled Away. His gold chariots And courtiers are gone. Only A stone horse is left of his Glory. I sit on the grass and Start a poem, but the pathos of It overcomes me. The future Slips imperceptibly away. Who can say what the years will bring?" Travelling Northward Waiting for Audience on a Spring Night To Wei Pa, a Retired Scholar "The lives of many men are Shorter than the years since we have Seen each other. Aldebaran And Antares move as we have. And now, what night is this? We sit Here together in the candle Light. How much longer will our prime Last? Our temples are already Grey. I visit my old friends. Half of them have become ghosts. Fear and sorrow choke me and burn My bowels. I never dreamed I would Come this way, after twenty years, A wayfarer to your parlor. When we parted years ago, You were unmarried. Now you have A row of boys and girls, who smile And ask me about my travels. How have I reached this time and place? Before I can come to the end Of an endless tale, the children Have brought out the wine. We go Out in the night and cut young Onions in the rainy darkness. We eat them with hot, steaming, Yellow millet. You say, "It is Sad, meeting each other again." We drink ten toasts rapidly from The rhinoceros horn cups. Ten cups, and still we are not drunk. We still love each other as We did when we were schoolboys. Tomorrow morning mountain peaks Will come between us, and with them The endless, oblivious Business of the world." By the Winding River I By the Winding River II To Pi Ssu Yao Loneliness Clear After Rain New Moon Overlooking the Desert Visitors Country Cottage The Willow Sunset Farewell to my Friend Yen A Restless Night in Camp South Wind Another Spring http://www.chinese-poems.com/rex.html. "White birds over the grey river. Scarlet flowers on the green hills. I watch the Spring go by and wonder If I shall ever return home." I Pass the Night at General Headquarters Far up the River Clear Evening after Rain Full Moon "Isolate and full, the moon Floats over the house by the river. Into the night the cold water rushes away below the gate. The bright gold spilled on the river is never still. The brilliance of my quilt is greater than precious silk. The circle without blemish. The empty mountains without sound. The moon hangs in the vacant, wide constellations. Pine cones drop in the old garden. The senna trees bloom. The same clear glory extends for ten thousand miles." Night in the House by the River Dawn Over the Mountains Homecoming — Late at Night Stars and Moon on the River Night Thoughts While Travelling Brimming Water Mai, Yao Ch'en = Mei, Yaochen (1002-1060) An Excuse for Not Returning a Visit Next Door Melon Girl Fish Peddler The Crescent Moon On the Death of a New Born Child Sorrow A Dream at Night I Remember the Blue River On the Death of His Wife In Broad Daylight I Dream of My Dead Wife I Remember the Paver at Wu Sung A Friend Advises Me to Stop Drinking Ou Yang Hsiu = Ouyang, Xiu (Luling, Jiangxi 1007-1072 Yingzhou, Anhui) In the Evening I walk by the River Fisherman Spring Walk East Wind Green Jade Plum Trees in Spring When the Moon is in the River of Heaven Song of Liang Chou Reading the Poems of an Absent Friend An Answer to Ting Yuan Ch'en Spring Day on West Lake Old Age Su, Tung P'o = Su, Dongpo = Su, Shi (Meishan, Sichuan 1037-1101 Changzhou, Jiangsu) The Red Cliff At Gold Hill Monastery On the Death of His Baby Son The Terrace in the Snow The Weaker the Wine The Last Day of the Year Harvest Sacrifice A Walk in the Country To a Traveler The Purple Peach Tree The Shadow of Flowers The End of the Year On the Siu Cheng Road Thoughts in Exile Looking from the Pavilion The Southern Room Over the River 83 Epigram At the Washing of My Son Moon, Flowers, Man Begonias Rain in the Aspens The Turning Year Autumn Spring Night Spring Li, Ch'ing Chao = Li, Qingzhao (Licheng, Shandong 1084-1151) Autumn Evening Beside the Lake Two Springs Quail Sky Alone in the Night Peach Blossoms Fall and Scatter The Day of Cold Food Mist Lu, Yu (Boat on Wei River 1125-1209) The Wild Flower Man Phoenix Hairpins Leaving the Monastery Rain on the River Evening in the Village I Walk Out in the Country at Night Idleness Night Thoughts Sekundärliteratur 1958 Achilles Fang : Although the names of these nine poets are given in Chinese, the book is primarily intended for readers who know no Chinese ; it does not reprint the original text, nor does it give any reference to the text Rexroth used. The notes contain biographies of the poets from which sinologists will profit little. On the whole, Rexroth is successful and even (with some modifications) accurate when a piece is short and direct. But he often takes what appear to be unwarranted liberties with the text. Rexroth apparently has an adequate knowledge of Chinese ; to be sure, he is an amateur (perhaps even an autodidact), but his omissions and commissions are not much more than one expects from a professional. Still, some of the many flaws may stem from the fact that he sought help from his Chinese friends, none of them specialists. And heightening the dangers of such recourse, occasionally failure in communication must be assumed to account for some of the errors. 1958 John L. Bishop : Mr. Rexroth is a poet who shows in his own work an unusual sympathy to the Chinese poet's technique of using the precise images of daily experience for their extended universal significance, of concentrating fixedly on the opaque fabric of life's ordinary happenings until behind it the landscape of the human spirit which it has curtained begins to be discerned. For the effectiveness of his translations and their readability as self-sufficient English poems, one can have only the highest admiration. Mr. Rexroth has made no attempt to reproduce the formal prosody of Chinese verse ; he has dispensed with rhyme, regular meter, and fixed line length and has employed parallelism between lines sparingly enough to avoid the rigid monotony which this device gives to English verse. The general effect of these English versions is one of clarity and simplicity, with even some of the conciseness of the original. The surface of factual statement is never overweighted with too great a burden of implication. Although he disarms criticism by denying any value for his work as Oriental scholarship and by frankly admitting that he considers his translations as expressions of himself. Fidelity to the spirit of the original poems requires first of all constant attention to the original text and secondly a highly critical use of existing translations. A cause of mistranslation in Mr. Rexroth's volume is a disregard for the formal structure of a Chinese poem. Granted that the Chinese poet frequently takes liberties with the rules of prosody, they are so ingrained in his versification that they can usually be assumed by the translator as a guide, in the absence of better, through the variants, ambiguities, and ellipses of a Chinese poem. The most serious kind of error found in these translations is that of disregarding the function of literary allusion in Chinese poetry. Fidelity to the spirit of the originals is well-nigh impossible in translation without an adequate knowledge of the corpus of literature known and constantly employed by the individual poet, without the services of a commentator whose annotations will supply our deficiencies. A number of Mr. Rexroth's deviations from the central intent of a poem seems to stem from attributing to the Chinese poet attitudes and ideals consistent with a Western lyric poet of the 19th or 20th century and ignoring the framework of ideas and conditioned thinking in which the Chinese poet worked. 1984 Ling Chung : Rexroth's Du Fu translations do not follow closely the source texts ; instead, the source texts by and large only serve as a departure point from which his imagination could soar freely. Literal exactness has never been Rexroth's goal ; he states his ambition thus : his translation should be 'true to the spirit of the originals, and valid English poems. Furthermore, many source texts which he consulted were not the original Chinese, but translations of Du Fu, in English, French, or German. The power and the beauty of his translation often lies in the passages which he rendered most freely and which bear little resemblance to the Chinese texts. Whenever Rexroth encountered anything which might have been unfamiliar to his readers, such as allusions to classical literature, history, and politics as well as traditional Chinese customs, manners and daily necessities, he would almost without exception find a more comprehensive substitute. In spite of the fact that Rexroth so often gives inaccurate, partial, or distorted presentation of Du Fu's poems, he is still far in advance of many other translators of Chinese verse in his comprehension of the Chinese poetic mind at work. Rexroth believes that the great artistry of Du Fu's poetry lies in his power to present 'himself immediately as a person in total communication' in a pure, simple, and direct way. He professed that among Du Fu's poems he chose those in which he could find experience identical to his own, those that would speak to him of similar situation in his own life, and eventually he came to regard his Du Fu translations as expressions of himself. 1988 Paul Kahn : The book has remained enormously popular for over three decades and many of its translations have been anthologized elsewhere. A major part of the book is devoted to translations of Du Fu. The thirty-five poems share several themes : observation of the movement of the seasons and the stars as a backdrop for and measure of human actions ; a recording of the simple pleasures of male friendship ; the tracing of a singular spirit's struggle to endure against the pressures of war, neglect, and aging. In poem after poem, the movement of constellations and figures of the zodiac are noted, the autumn leaves scatter and the spring wind begins in the mountains. The movements of the gull, the cormorants, the orioles, and the sparrows are observed along with the sounds of war. The poet places himself walking in a manured field, sitting in the grass, alone in a boat, pulling onions in a garden, strolling towards a hut by the river. Rexroth shows no interest in informing the reader about the characteristics of the Chinese language, nor about the formal qualities of Du Fu's poetry. The structure of the original poems is entirely subordinate to the structure of the verse Rexroth uses to convey their 'spirit' and sense in translation. He systematically deforms the basic unit on which Du Fu's poetry is built, the couplet. In place of the structure of the gu-shi and lü-shi he substitutes a prosody informed by a century of Anglo-American experimentation in free verse. Rexroth gets a sound and sprung rhythm from the sentences which wrap from line to line. [The article contains descriptions of the poems To Wei Pa, a retired scholar, Snow storm, Night thoughts while travelling]. |
|
| 3 | 1957 |
Williams, William Carlos. Two new books by Kenneth Rexroth [ID D29177]. One hundred poems from the Chinese Kenneth Rexroth has recently translated One Hundred Poems from the Chinese, one of the most brilliantly sensitive books of poems in the American idiom it has ever been my good fortune to read. It must be amazing to the occidental reader, acquainted we'll say with Palgrave's Golden Treasury, to realize that the Chinese have a practice and art of the poem, which in subtlety of lyrical candor, far exceeds his own. I am grateful to him. Nothing comparable and as relaxed is to be found I think in the whole of English or American verse, and in French or Spanish verse, so far as I know. So that it constitutes a unique experience to read what has been set down here. Womanhood has been engraved on our minds in unforgettable terms. Oh, I know that women can be bitches, you don't have to be a homo'sexual to learn that, but the exact and telling and penetrant realization of a woman's reality, of her lot, has never been better set down. It is tremendously moving, as none of our well known attempts, say, throughout the Renaissance have ever succeeded in being. This is a feat of overwhelming importance. It is not a question of a man or woman's excess in experience or suffering, for whatever this amounted to, they have had to do; but that in their mutual love they have been made to bear their fates. What does it matter what a woman and a man in love will do for themselves? Someone will succeed and someone will die. In the poem suddenly we realize that we know that and perceive in a single burst of vision, in a flash that dazzles the reader. The poet Tu Fu (713-770) was the first, with him it begins. Homer and Sappho with their influence on our poetry had been dead for over a thousand years. The use of the metaphor, pivotal in our own day, had not been discovered by the Chinese in these ancient masterpieces. The metaphor comes as a flash, nascent in the line, which flares when the image is suddenly shifted and we are jolted awake just as when the flint strikes the steel. The same that the Chinese poet seeks more simply when the beauty of his images bursts at one stroke directly upon us. Dawn over the Mountains The city is silent, Sounds drains away Buildings vanish in the light of dawn, Cold sunlight comes on the highest peak, The dust of night Clings to the hills, The earth opens, The river boats are vague, The still sky— The sound of falling leaves. A huge doe comes to the garden gate, Lost from the herd, Seeking its fellows. (Tu Fu) Where is the poem? without metaphor among these pages so effortlessly put down. Occidental art seems more than a little strained compared to this simplicity. You cannot say there is no art since we are overwhelmed by it. The person of the poet, the poetess, no, the woman herself (when it is a woman), speaks to us... in an unknown language, to our very ears, so that we actually weep with her and what she says (while we are not aware of her secret) is that she breathes. . . that she is alive as we are. Where is it hidden in the words? Our own clumsy poems, the best of them, following the rules of grammar . . . trip themselves up. What is a sonnet of Shakespeare beside this limpidity but a gauche, a devised pretext? and it takes fourteen lines rigidly to come to its conclusion. But with bewildering simplicity we see the night end, the dawn come in and a wild thing approach a garden. . . . But the compression without being crowded, the opposite of being squeezed into a narrow space, a few lines, a universe, from the milky way . . . vividly appears before us. But where has it been hidden? because it is somewhere among the words to our despair, if we are poets, or pretend to be, it is really a simple miracle, like that of the loaves and the fishes. . . . Where does the miracle lodge, to have survived so unaffectedly the years translation to a foreign language and not only a foreign language but a language of fundamentally different aspect from that in which the words were first written? The metaphor is total, it is overall, a total metaphor. But there are two parts to every metaphor that we have known heretofore: the object and its reference—one of them is missing in these Chinese poems that have survived to us and survived through the years, to themselves also. They have been jealously, lovingly guarded.. .Where does it exist in the fabric of the poem? so tough that it can outlast copper and steel ... a poem? —and really laughs and cries! it is alive. —It is as frightening as it is good. And the Chinese as a race have built upon it to survive, the words of Tu Fu, a drunken poet, what I mean is DRUNK! and a bum, who did not do perhaps one constructive thing with himself in his life—or a Bodenheim. I go to a reception and find a room crowded with people whom 1 cannot talk with except one, a man (or a woman perhaps) or one who wearies me with his insistencies. . . . When a few miraculous lines that keep coming into my head transport me through space a thousand years into the past.... "A magic carpet" the ancients called it. It costs nothing, it's not the least EXPENSIVE! Look at the object: an unhappy woman, no longer young, waking in her lonely bed and looking over a moonlit valley, that is all. Or a man drunk or playing with his grandchildren who detain him so that he can¬not keep an appointment to visit a friend. . . . And what? A few fragile lines which have proved indestructible! Have you ever thought that a cannon blast or that of an atomic bomb is absolutely powerless beside this?—unless you extinguish man (and woman), the whole human race. A smile would supersede it, totally. I raise the curtains and go out To watch the moon. Leaning on the Balcony, I breathe the evening Wind from the west, heavy with the Odors of decaying Autumn. The rose-jade of the river Blends with the green-jade of the void. Hidden in the grass a cricket chirps. Hidden in the sky storks cry out. I turn over and over in My heart the memories of Other days. Tonight as always There is no one to share my thoughts. (Shu Chu Senn) or this: The Visitors I have had asthma for a Long time. It seems to improve Here in this house by the river. It is quiet too. No crowds Bother me. I am brighter here And more rested. I am happy here. When someone calls at my thatched hut My son brings me my straw hat And I go out to gather A handful of fresh vegetables. It isn't much to offer. But it is given in friendship. (Tu Fu) These men (a woman among the best of them) were looking at direct objects when they were writing, the transition from their pens or brushes is direct to the page. It was a beautiful object (not always a beautiful object, sometimes a horrible one) that they produced. It is incredible that it survived. It must have been treasured as a rare phenomenon by the people to be cared for and reproduced at great pains. But the original inscriptions, so vividly recording the colors and moods of the scene . . . were invariably put down graphically in the characters (not words), the visual symbols that night and day appeared to the poet. The Chinese calligraphy must have contributed vastly to this. Our own 'Imagists' were right to brush aside purely grammatical conformations. What has grammar to do with poetry save to trip up its feet in that mud? It is important to a translator but that is all. But it is important to a translator, as Kenneth Rexroth well knows. But mostly he has to know the construction of his own idiom into which he is rendering his text, when to ignore its more formal configurations. This is where the translations that Kenneth Rexroth has made are brilliant. His knowledge of the American idiom has given him complete freedom to make a euphonious rendering of a text which has defied more cultured ears to this date. It may seem to be undisciplined but it is never out of the translator's measured control. Mr. Rexroth is a genius in his own right, inventing a modern language, or following a vocal tradition which he raises here to great distinction. Without a new language into which the poems could be rendered their meaning would have been lost. Finally, when he comes to the end of introduction, he says, "So here are two selections of poetry, one the work of a couple of years, the other the personal distillate of a lifetime. I hope they meet the somewhat different ends I have in view. I make no claim for the book as a piece of Oriental scholarship. Just some poems." At the very end there are data, notes, ten pages of them, annotated page for page, on the individual poems. And two and a half pages of Select Bibliography. The translations into English began in 1870 with The Chinese Classics, James Legge. Included is a mention of Ezra Pound's Cathay, 1915. In the French there is, dating from 1862, the Poesies Chinoises de I'Epoque Thang, and, among others, that of Judith Gautier's, 1908, Livre de Jade. The German versions are still those of Klabund. |
|
| 4 | 1961 |
Rexroth, Kenneth. The poet as translator. In : Rexroth, Kenneth. Assays. (New York, N.Y. : New Directions, 1961). Rexroth presents an anthology of six poems by different translators. Half are translations from Chinese originals by Ezra Pound, Stuart Merrill and Witter Bynner. "Most Sinologists are philologists. They are all too close to the language as such and too fascinated by its special very un-English and yet curiously very English-like problems ever to see the texts as literature. The grammarian takes over in the decadence of the story of language ; but he also takes over – in fact he is essential – in its infancy". |
|
| 5 | 1966 |
Rexroth, Kenneth. An autobiographical novel [ID D32236]. Chap. 34. Witter Bynner was just beginning to translate Chinese poetry. He was the first person I had met with whom I could share my own interest. He had a very sensible Chinese informant, and bad never fallen victim to the outrageous ideographic theories of Ezra pound and Amy Lowell. He introduced me to the major Sinologists in French and English, in those days still a rather limited study, and recommended a Chinese student at the University of Chicago who was a great help to me the next winter. He also helped me to shift my focus of interest from the poetry of Li Tai Po, in those days considered by most Westerners China's greatest poet, to Tu Fu. For this-an hour's conversation in a sun-baked patio—I have reason to be eternally grateful to Witter Bynner. Tu Fu has been without question the major influence on my own poetry, and I consider him the greatest nonepic, jiondramatic poet who ever lived. In some ways he is a better poet than either Shakespeare or Homer. At least he is more natural and intimate. Tu Fu comes from a saner, older, more secular culture than Homer and it is not a new discovery with him that the gods, the abstractions and forces of nature are frivolous, lewd, vicious, quarrelsome, and cruel, and only men s steadfastness, love, magnanimity, calm, and compassion redeem the nightbound world. It is not a discovery, culturally or historically, but it is the essence of his being as a poet If Isaiah is the greatest religious poet, Tu Fu is not religious at all. But for me his response to the human situation is the only kind of religion likely to outlast this century, "Reverence of life" it has been called. I have saturated myself with his poetry for thirty years. I am sure he has made me a better man, as a moral agent and as a perceiving organism. I say this because I feel that, above a certain level of attainment, the greatest poetry answers out of hand the problems of the critics and the esthetician. Poetry like Tu Fu's is the answer to the question "What is the purpose of art?" |
|
| 6 | 1967 |
Rexroth, Kenneth. The heart's garden, the garden's heart [ID D32231]. The Eve of Ch'ing Ming--Clear Bright, A quail's breast sky and smoky hills, The great bronze gong booms in the Russet sunset. Late tonight It will rain. Tomorrow will Be clear and cool once more. One more Clear, bright day in this floating life. Morgan Gibson : In Rexroth's fifth and last long philosophical poem, the aging poet wanders through Japanese forests at the beginning of summer recalling Lao-tzu's imagery of the Tao : 'The valley's soul is deathless. It is called the dark woman. The dark woman is the gate. To the root of heaven and earth'. He feels towards the Tao like a man who has lost the woman he loves. But since illumination is like the innocence of fish who do not know that they live in water, the desire for it is self-defeating. He loses himself in intermingling sensations of bamboo leaves, gold fish, waterfalls, birds, birdlike voices of women, temple bells, meadows, lakes, the perfume of flowers and forests. The Tao, the radiant harmony of life, both immanent and transcendent, speaks in his pulse and breathing. The language of this poem is as sensuous as the perceptions that it conveys. No other poem of Rexroth's is more musical. |
|
| 7 | 1967 |
Rexroth, Kenneth. Yin and yang. In : Rexroth, Kenneth. The collected shorter poems. (New York : New Directions, 1967). http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/m_r/rexroth/onlinepoems.htm. It is spring once more in the Coast Range Warm, perfumed, under the Easter moon. The flowers are back in their places. The birds are back in their usual trees. The winter stars set in the ocean. The summer stars rise from the mountains. The air is filled with atoms of quicksilver. Resurrection envelops the earth. Geometrical, blazing, deathless, Animals and men march through heaven, Pacing their secret ceremony. The Lion gives the moon to the Virgin. She stands at the crossroads of heaven, Holding the full moon in her right hand, A glittering wheat ear in her left. The climax of the rite of rebirth Has ascended from the underworld Is proclaimed in light from the zenith. In the underworld the sun swims Between the fish called Yes and No. |
|
| 8 | 1970 |
Rexroth, Kenneth. One hundred more poems : love and the turning year [ID D32197]. Anonymous (Han Dynasty) Home Life is Long Anonymous (Six Dynasties) All Year Long Bitter Cold I Can No Longer Untangle my Hair In Spring We Gather Mulberry Leaves Kill That Crowing Cock My Lover will Soon be Here Night Without End Nightfall Our Little Sister is Worried The Cuckoo Calls from the Bamboo Grove The Fish Weeps The Girl by Green River The Months Go By This Morning Our Boat Left What is the Matter with Me? Chang, Chi = Zhang, Ji (Xiangnan, Hubei 712-715-779) Night at Anchor by Maple Bridge The Birds from the Mountains A Faithful Wife Ch'ang, Ch'u Ling = Chang, Chuling (673-740) Since You Left http://creative.sulekha.com/since-you-left-my-lover-ch-ang-ch-u-ling_28354_blog. "Since you left, my lover, I can't take care of myself. I do nothing but think of you. I fade like the waning moon." Ch'ang, Kuo Fan = Chang, Guofan (?) On his Thirty-third Birthday http://laudatortemporisacti.blogspot.ch/2010/07/what-did-i-gain.html. "More than thirty years have rushed By me like a runaway Chariot. I too have spent My life rushing here and there From one end of the country' To the other. I long for The homestead where I was born, A thousand mountain ranges Away. Like yellow leaves in The decline of Summer a Few white hairs have already Appeared on my head. All my Travels only made tracks In drifting sand. I piled up Learning like a snowball. I crossed mountains and passed Examinations and gave Learned speeches. What did I gain? Better I stayed home And raised prize melons." Ch'en, T'ao = Chen, Tao (824-882) Her Husband Asks her to Buy a Bolt of Silk Ch'en, Yu Yi = Chen Yuyi (1090-1139) Enlightenment Spring Morning Chiang, Chieh = Jiang, Jie (Jiangsu 1245-1319) To the Tune "The Fair Maid of Yu" Chiang, She Ch'uan = Jiang, Shichuan ? (?) Evening Lights on the River Twilight in the River Pavilion http://buffleheadcabin.com/post/200883725/twilight-in-the-river-pavilion-by-chiang-she-chuan. "I lean on my rustic gate Above the swift river In the evening and hear The distant sound of women Beating clothes. The little bridge Arches over the fishes And turtles. Once in a great while Someone crosses. A reflection Appears on the water, then is gone." Ch'ien, Ch'i = Qian, Qi (710–782) Mount T'ai P'ing Visit to the Hermit Ts'ui Ch'ien Wen of Liang (Hsiao Kang), Emperor = Jian Wen of Liang, Xiao Gang (503–551) Flying Petals Rising in Winter Ch'in, Ch'ang Siu = Qin, Changxiu ? (?) Spring Sorrow Chu, Chen Po = Zhu, Zhenbo ? (?) Hedgehog The Rustic Temple is Hidden Ch'u, Ch'uang I = Chu, Chuangyi ? (frühes 8. Jh.) A Mountain Spring Country House Evening in the Garden Clear After Rain Tea Chu, Shu Chen = Zhu, Shuzhen (ca. 1135 – 1180) Lost Sorrow Fan, Yun (Wuyin, Henan 451-503) Farewell to Shen Yueh Fu, Hsüan = Fu, Xuan (217–278) Thunder Han, Yu (Mengxian, Henan 768-824) Amongst the Cliffs "The path up the mountain is hard To follow through the tumbled rocks. When I reach the monastery The bats are already flying. I go to the guest room and sit On the steps. The rain is over. The banana leaves are broad. The gardenias are in bloom. The old guest master tells me There are ancient paintings on the Walls. He goes and gets a light. I see they are incomparably Beautiful. He spreads my bed And sweeps the mat. He serves me Soup and rice. It is simple Food but nourishing. The night Goes on as I lie and listen To the great peace. Insects chirp And click in the stillness. The Pure moon rises over the ridge And shines in my door. At daybreak I get up alone. I saddle My horse myself and go my way. The trails are all washed out. I go up and down, picking my Way through storm clouds on the mountain. Red cliffs, green waterfalls, all Sparkle in the morning light. I pass pines and oaks ten men Could not reach around. I cross Flooded streams. My bare feet stumble On the cobbles. The water roars. My clothes whip in the wind. This Is the only life where a man Can find happiness. Why do I Spend my days bridled like a horse With a cruel bit in his mouth? If I only had a few friends Who agreed with me we'd retire To the mountains and stay till our lives end." Ho, Ch'e Ch'ang = He, Chechang ? (?) Homecoming Ho, Hsun = He, Xun (466/469-519) Spring Breeze The Traveler Hsieh, Ling Yuen = Xie, Lingyun (385-433) By T'ing Yang Waterfall Hsieh, Ngao = Xie, Xiao ? (?) Wind Tossed Dragons http://www.planet-of-the-blind.com/2011/10/wind-tossed-dragons.html. "The shadows of the cypresses On the moonlit avenue To the abandoned palace Weave in tangles on the road Like great kelp in the depths of the sea. When the palace was full of people I used to see this all the time And never noticed how beautiful it was. Mid-Autumn full moon, the luminous night Is like a boundless ocean. A wild Wind blows down the empty birds' nests And makes a sound like the waves of the sea In the branches of the lonely trees." Hsin, Ch'i Chi = Xin Qiji (1140-1207) To an Old Tune Huang, T'ing Ch'ien [Chien] = Huang, Tingjian (1045-1105) Clear Bright Kao, Chi [Ch'i] = Gao, Qi (1336-1374) The Old Cowboy "Other oxen have long curly horns. My ox has a long bare tail. I tag along behind, Holding it like a flute or a whip. We wander from the Southern hill To the Eastern cliffs. When he is tired or hungry, I always know what to do. Sunset, my ox ambles slowly home. As he walks along, I sing a song. When he lies down, I do too. At night in the barn I sleep by his side. I am old. I take care of my ox. I have nothing else to do. I only worry that some day They will sell my ox To pay their taxes." Kuan, Yun She [Kuang, Yünshih] = Guan, Yunshi (12886-1324) Seventh Day Seventh Month Li, Ch'ing Chao = Li, Qingzhao (1084-1155) A Weary Song to a Slow Sad Tune To the Tune "A Lonely Flute on the Phoenix Terrace" To the Tune "Cutting a Flowering Plum Branch" To the Tune "Drunk Under Flower Shadows" To the Tune "Spring at Wu Ling" To the Tune "The Boat of Stars Li, P'in = Li, Pin (818-876) Crossing Han River Li, Shang Yin = Li, Shangyin (ca. 1813-1858) Evening Comes Her Beauty is Hidden I Wake Up Alone The Candle Casts Dark Shadows The Old Harem When Will I Be Home? Liu, Ch'ang Ch'ing = Liu, Changqing (709-785) Snow on Lotus Mountain Liu, Yü Hsi = Liu, Yuxi (772-842) Drinking with Friends Amongst the Blooming Peonies To the Tune "Glittering Sword Hilts" Lu, Chi = Lu, Ji = Shiheng (Suzhou, Zhejiang 261-303) She Thinks of her Beloved Visit to the Monastery of Good Omen Lu, Kuei Meng = Lu, Guimeng (gest. 881) To an Old Tune Lu, Yu = Lu, You (Boat on Wei river 1125-1209) In the Country Insomnia Lazy Rain on the River Meng, Hao Jan = Meng, Haoran (Xiangyang, Hubei 689-740) Night on the Great River Returning by Night to Lu-men Ng, Shao = Wu ?, Shao (?) The New Wife P'an, Lady = Pan, Lady = Ban, Jieyu (ca.48-6 v. Chr., Concubine) A Present from the Emperor's New Concubine http://www.csupomona.edu/~inch/group1/DOAIST.PDF. "I took a piece of the rare cloth of Ch’i, White silk glowing and pure as frost on snow, And made you a fan of harmony and joy, As flawlessly round as the full moon. Carry it always, nestled in your sleeve. Wave it and it will make a cooling breeze. I hope, that when Autumn comes back And the North wind drives away the heat, You will not store it away amongst old gifts And forget it, long before it is worn out." P'an, Yueh (P'an Yeng Jen) = Pan, Yue (Pan, Anren) (Zhongmu, Henan 247–300) In Mourning for his Dead Wife http://www.worldcat.org/title/love-and-the-turning-year-one-hundred-more-poems-from-the-chinese/oclc/142145&referer=brief_results. "Winter and Spring have come and gone. Once more Autumn overtakes Summer. She has returned to The Hidden Springs. And all the World separates us forever. Who will listen to my secrets Now? Who will I live for now? I try to do my job at Court, And reluctantly go through The motions of duty, and Take up the tasks I had dropped. When I come home I can think Only of her. When I come In our room I expect to see her. I catch her shadow on the Screens and curtains. Her letters Are the most precious examples Of calligraphy. Her perfume Still haunts the bedroom. Her clothes Still hang there in the closet. She is always alive in My dreams. I wake with a start. She vanishes. And I Am overwhelmed with sorrow. Two birds made a nest and then There was only one. A pair Of fishes were separated And lost in the current. The Autumn wind blows. The morning Is misty, with dripping eaves. All through the troubled night I was Not able to forget in sleep. I hope the time will come when I am calm enough to beat On a pot like Chuang Tzu did." Pao, Yu = Bao, You ? (?) Viaticum Po, Chü I = Bo, Juyi = Bai, Juyi (Xinzhen, Henan 772-846) The Bamboo by Li Ch’e Yun's Window Shen, Yueh = Shen, Yue = Shen, Xiuwen (Huzhou, Zhejiang 441-513) Farewell to Fan Yun at An Ch'eng Su, Tung P'o = Su Shi = Su, Dongpo (Meishan, Sichuan 1037-1101 Changzhou, Jiangsu) Remembering Min Ch'e (a Letter to his Brother Su Che) Su, Wu Drafted "They married us when they put Up our hair. We were just twenty And fifteen. And ever since, Our love has never been troubled. Tonight we have the old joy In each other, although our Happiness will soon be over. I remember the long march That lies ahead of me, and Go out and look up at the stars, To see how the night has worn on. Betelgeuse and Antares Have both gone out. It is time For me to leave for far off Battlefields. No way of knowing If we will ever see each Other again. We clutch each Other and sob, our faces Streaming with tears. Goodbye, dear. Protect the Spring flowers of Your beauty. Think of the days When we were happy together. If I live I will come back. If I die, remember me always." T'ao, Hung Ching (T'ao T'ung Ming) = Tao, Hongjing (Tao Tongming) (Moling 451/456-536, Huayang) Freezing Night T'ao, Yuan Ming (Tao Chin) = Tao, Yuanming = Tao, Qian (Xunyang = Jiujiang, Jiangxi 365-427) I Return to the Place I Was Born T'ien, Hung = Tian, Hong (?) Dew on the Young Garlic Leaves Ts'ui, Hao = Cui, Hao (ca. 704-754) By the City Gate Tu, Fu = Du, Fu (Gongxian, Henan 712-770) Spring Rain Tu, Mu = Du, Mu (Chang'an 803-852) View from the Cliffs We Drink Farewell Wang, Chang Ling [Ch'ang] = Wang, Xhangling (698–756) A Sorrow in the Harem Wang, Hung Kung = Wang, Honggong = Rexroth, Kenneth In the Mountain Village Wang, Shi Ch'eng (Wang, I Shang) = Wang, Shicheng (Wang, Yishang) ( ?) At Ch'en Ch'u Wang, Wei (Shanxi 701-761) Autumn Autumn Twilight in the Mountains Bird and Waterfall Music Deep in the Mountain Wilderness "Deep in the mountain wilderness Where nobody ever comes Only once in a great while Something like the sound of a far off voice, The low rays of the sun Slip through the dark forest, And gleam again on the shadowy moss." Twilight Comes Wan, T'ing Yen = Wen, Tingyun = Wan, Wenqi (Qin, Shanxi 812-870) In the Mountains as Autumn Begins Passing a Ruined Palace Wu of Han, Emperor = Han Wudi (156-87 v. Chr.) = Liu, Che Autumn Wind From the Most Distant Time Wu of Liang, Emperor = Liang Wudi = Xiao, Yan (Nanlanding 464-549) The Morning Sun Shines Water Lilies Bloom Wu, Wei Ye = Wu, Weiye (1609–1671) At Yuen Yang Lake Yang of Sui, Emperor = Yang, Guang (569-618) Spring River Flowers Moon Night Yuan, Chi = Yuan, Ji ? = Ruan, Ji ? (210-263) Deep Night http://orientem.blogspot.ch/2009/08/deep-night-by-yuan-chi-210-263.html. "Deep night. I cannot sleep. I get up and sing softly to my lute. Moonlight glows in the gauze curtains. I open my night gown, and let The fresh night air bathe my body. A lonely wild goose cries out In the distant meadow. A night bird flies calling through the trees. I come and go without rest. What do I gain by it? My mind is distracted by worries That will never cease. My heart is all bruised By the troubled ghosts who haunt it." Yuan, Mei (Hangzhou 1716–1797) Summer Day Winter Night |
|
| 9 | 1972 |
The orchid boat : women poets of China. Transl. and ed. by Kenneth Rexroth and Ling Chung [ID D32196]. Ho, Lady = He, Lady. (300 v. Chr.) A Song of Magpies. Chuo, Wen-chün = Zhuo, Wenjun (Han) A Song of White Hair Pan, Chieh-yü = Ban, Jieyu. (48 v. Chr.) A Song of Grief Ts'ai, Yen = Cai, Yan = Cai Wenji. (Qixian, Henan 177-250) From 18 Verses Sung to a Tatar Reed Whistle I, II, VII, XI, XIII, XVII I I was born in a time of peace, But later the mandate of Heaven Was withdrawn from the Han Dynasty. Heaven was pitiless. It sent down confusion and separation. Earth was pitiless. It brought me to birth in such a time. War was everywhere. Every road was dangerous. Soldiers and civilians everywhere Fleeing death and suffering. Smoke and dust clouds obscured the land Overrun by the ruthless Tatar bands. Our people lost their will power and integrity. I can never learn the ways of the barbarians. I am daily subject to violence and insult. I sing one stanza to my lute and a Tatar horn. But no one knows my agony and grief. II A Tatar chief forced me to become his wife, And took me far away to Heaven’s edge. Ten thousand clouds and mountains Bar my road home, And whirlwinds of dust and sand Blow for a thousand miles. Men here are as savage as giant vipers, And strut about in armor, snapping their bows. As I sing the second stanza I almost break the lutestrings. Will broken, heart broken, I sing to myself. VII The sun sets. The wind moans. The noise of the Tatar camp rises all around me. The sorrow of my heart is beyond expression, But who could I tell it to anyway? Far across the desert plains, The beacon fires of the Tatar garrisons Gleam for ten thousand miles. It is the custom here to kill the old and weak And adore the young and vigorous. They wander seeking new pasture, And camp for a while behind earth walls. Cattle and sheep cover the prairie, Swarming like bees or ants. When the grass and water are used up, They mount their horses and drive on their cattle. The seventh stanza sings of my wandering. How I hate to live this way! XI I have no desire to live, but I am afraid of death. I cannot kill my body, for my heart still has hope That I can live long enough To obtain my one and only desire — That someday I can see again The mulberry and catalpa trees of home. If I had consented to death, My bones would have been buried long ago. Days and months pile up in the Tatar camp. My Tatar husband loved me. I bore him two sons. I reared and nurtured them unashamed, Sorry only that they grew up in a desert outpost. The eleventh stanza — sorrow for my sons At the first notes pierces my heart’s core. XIII I never believed that in my broken life The day would come when Suddenly I could return home. I embrace and caress my Tatar sons. Tears wet our clothes. An envoy from the Han Court Has come to bring me back, With four stallions that can run without stopping. Who can measure the grief of my sons? They thought I would live and die with them. Now it is I who must depart. Sorrow for my boys dims the sun for me. If we had wings we could fly away together. I cannot move my feet. For each step is a step away from them. My soul is overwhelmed. As their figures vanish in the distance Only my love remains. The thirteenth stanza — I pick the strings rapidly But the melody is sad. No one can know The sorrow which tears my bowels. XVII The seventeenth stanza. My heart aches, my tears fall. Mountain passes rise before us, the way is hard. Before I missed my homeland So much my heart was disordered. Now I think again and again, over and over, Of the sons I have lost. The yellow sagebrush of the border, The bare branches and dry leaves, Desert battlefields, white bones Scarred with swords and arrows, Wind, frost, piercing cold, Cold springs and summers Men and horses hungry and exhausted, worn out — I will never know them again Once I have entered Chang An. I try to strangle my sobs But my tears stream down my face. Meng, Chu = Meng, Zhu (3. Jh.) Spring Song Tzu, Yeh = Zi, Ye. (4. Jh.) Five Tzu Yeh Songs Anonymous On the Slope of Hua Mountain Su Hsiao-hsaio [sic] = Su, Xiaoxiao = Su Xiaojun (geb. Hangzhou, Zhejiang ; gest. 501) A Song of Hsi-ling Lake Pao, Ling-hui = Bao Linghui. (Southern dynasties) After one of the 19 famous Han poems Wu, Tsê-tien = Wu, Zetian (Empress (ca. 625-705, reg. 690-705) A Love Song of the Empress Wu Kuan, P'an-p'an = Guan, Panpan (fl. 805-820, Concubine of Zhang Yin) Mourning Li, Yeh = Li, Ye (Taoist priestess, Da Li (766 - 779 A.D.) A Greeting to Lu Hung-chien Who Came to Visit me by the Lake in my Illness Yü, Hsüan-chi = Yu Xuanji (842-872, Courtesan) Advice to a Neighbor Girl Living in the Summer Mountains On a Visit to Chung chen Taoist Temple I See in the South Hall the List of Successful Candidates in the Imperial Examinations Sending Spring Love to Tzu-an Hsüeh, T'ao = Xue, Tao (770-832) The Autumn Brook An Old Poem to Yiian Chen Hsüeh, Ch'iung = Xue, Qiong (?) A Song of Cliin Men District Han, Ts'ui-p'in = Han, Cuipin (9. Jh.) A Poem Written on a Floating Red Leaf Chang, Wen-chi = Zhang, Wenji. (Tang) The Bamboo Shaded Pool Chao, Luan-luan = Zhao, Luanluan (9. Jh.) Slender Fingers Red Sandalwood Mouth Willow Eyebrows Cloud Hairdress Creamy Breasts Hua, Jui, Lady = Huaruifuren (um 935-964) The Emperor Asks Why My Husband Surrendered Life in the Palace Ch'ien, T'ao = Qian, Tao (Xunyang = Jiujiang, Jiangxi 365-427) Written at a Party Where My Lord Gave Away a Thousand Bolts of Silk Wei, Lady = Wei, Wan (Xiangfang, Hubei 1040-1103) To the tune “The Bodhisattva's "Barbaric Headdress" Li, Ching-chao = Li, Qingzhao (Licheng, Shandong 1084-1151) To the short tune "The Magnolias" To the tune "A Hilly Garden" Happy and Tipsy To the tune "A Dream Song" The Sorrow of Departure "Red lotus incense fades on The jeweled curtain. Autumn Comes again. Gently I open My silk dress and float alone On the orchid boat. Who can Take a letter beyond the clouds? Only the wild geese come back And write their ideograms On the sky under the full Moon that floods the West Chamber. Flowers, after their kind, flutter And scatter. Water after Its nature, when spilt, at last Gathers again in one place. Creatures of the same species Long for each other. But we Are far apart and I have Grown learned in sorrow. Nothing can make it dissolve And go away. One moment, It is on my eyebrows. The next, it weighs on my heart." To the tune “Butterflies Love Flowers” Spring Ends To the tune "Spring in Wu-ling" To the tune "The Honor of a Fisherman" To the tune "Eternal Happiness" Anonymous (attributed to Li Qingzhao) To the tune "I Paint My Lips Red" To the tune "Picking Mulberries" Chu, Shuchen = Zhu, Shuzhen (1095-1131 od. 1063-1106) Spring Joy Spring Night To the tune "Panning Gold" Plum Blossoms Playing All a Summer's Day by the Lake To the tune "Clear Bright Joy" Nieh, Sheng-ch'iung = Nie, Shengqiong (12. Jh., Courtesan) Farewell to Li To the tune "A Partridge Sky" T'ang, Wan = Tang Wan (um 1144) To the tune "The Phoenix Hairpin" Sun, Tao-hsuan = Sun, Daoxuan = Chongxu Jushi (geb. Jian'ou, Fujian um 1100-1150) To the tune "A Dream Song" Wang, Ch'ing-hui = Wang Qinghui (um 1264-1288) To the tune "The River Is Red" Kuang, Tao-sheng = Guang, Daosheng (Huzhou 1262-1319) Married Love "You and I Have so much love, That it Burns like a fire, In which we bake a lump of clay Molded into a figure of you And a figure of me. Then we take both of them, And break them into pieces, And mix the pieces with water, And mold again a figure of you, And a figure of me. I am in your clay. You are in my clay. In life we share a single quilt. In death we will share one coffin." Anonymous Courtesan's Songs To the tune "Red Embroidered Shoes" Chu, Chung-hsien = Zhu, Zhongxian = Zhu, Jing'an = Zhu, Lingwen (Haining, Hangzhou 1422-1506) To the tune "A Branch of Bamboo" Anonymous A Song of the Dice Huang, O = Huang, E (1498-1569). To the tune "The Fall of a Little Wild Goose" "Once upon a time I was Beautiful and seductive, Wavering to and fro in Our orchid scented bedroom. You and me together tangled In our incense filled gauze Bed curtains. I trembled, Held in your hands. You carried Me in your heart wherever You went. Suddenly A bullet struck down the female Mandarin duck. The music Of the jade zither was forgotten. The phoenixes were driven apart. I sit alone in a room Filled with Spring, and you are off, Making love with someone else, Happy as two fish in the water. That insufferable little bitch With her coy tricks! She’d better not forget — This old witch can still Make a furious scene!" A Farewell to a Southern Melody To the tune "A Floating Cloud Crosses Enchanted Mountain" To the tune "Soaring Clouds" "You held my lotus blossom In your lips and played with the Pistil. We took one piece of Magic rhinoceros horn And could not sleep all night long. All night the cock's gorgeous crest Stood erect. All night the bee Clung trembling to the flower Stamens. Oh my sweet perfumed Jewel! I will allow only My lord to possess my sacred Lotus pond, and every night You can make blossom in me Flowers of fire." To the tune "Red Embroidered Shoes" Ma Hsiang-lan = Ma, Xianglan = Ma, Shouzhen (1548-1604) Waterlilies Shao, Fei-fei = Shao, Feifei (geb. Hangzhou, 17. Jh.) A Letter Wang, Wei (Shanxi 701-761) Seeking a Mooring Ho, Shuang-ch'ing = He, Shuangqing (1715-?) To the tune "A Watered Silk Dress" To the tune "Washing Silk in the Stream" Sun, Yun-feng = Sun Yunfeng (1764-1814) On the Road Through Chang-te " On the last year's trip I enjoyed this place. I am glad to come back here today. The fish market is deep in blue shadows. I can see the smoke for tea rising From the thatched inn. The sands of the river beaches Merge with the white moon. Along the shore the willows Wait for their Spring green. Lines of a poem run through my mind. I order the carriage to stop for a while." Travelling in the Mountains "Traveling homesick with the West wind, The dust of my cart rises to the evening clouds. The last cicadas drone in the yellowing leaves. In the sunset a man’s shadow looms like a mountain. One by one the birds go to roost. I wander aimlessly and never go home. I pause above a stream and envy the fisherman Who sits there in solitude and leisure, Thinking his own elegant thoughts." Starting at Dawn The Trail Up Wu Gorge Wu, Tsao = Wu, Zao (geb. ca. 1800) To the tune "The Pain of Lovesickness" For the Courtesan Ch'ing Lin To the tune "The Love of the Immortals" To the tune "The Joy of Peace and Brightness" To the tune "Flowers Along the Path through the Field" Returning from Flower Law Mountain On a Winter Day To the tune "Washing Silk in the Stream" In the Home of the Scholar Wu Su-chiang From Hsin-an, I Saw Two Psalteries of the Late Sung General Hsieh Fang-te To the tune "A Dream Song" Yu, Ch'in-tseng = Yu Qingzeng (spates 19. Jh.) To the tune "Intoxicated with Shadows of Flowers" Ch'iu, Chin = Qiu, Jin (Xiamen, Fujian 1875-1907 Shaoxing, Zhejiang) A Call to Action A Letter to Lady T'ao Ch'iu "All alone with my shadow, I whisper and murmur to it, And write strange characters In the air, like Yin Hao. It is not sickness, nor wine, Nor sorrow for those who are gone, Like Li Ch'ing-chao, that causes A whole city of anxiety To rise in my heart. There is no one here I can speak to Who can understand me. My hopes and visions are greater Than those of the men around me, But the chance of our survival is too narrow. What good is the heart of a hero Inside my dress? My perilous fate moves according to plan. I ask Heaven Did the heroines of the past Encounter envy like this?" To the tune "Walking through the Sedges" Two poems to the tune "The Narcissus by the River" I, II To the tune "The River Is Red" Ping, Hsin = Bing, Xin = Bingxin = Xie, Bingxin = Xie, Wanying (Fuzhou, Fujian 1900-1999) Remembering For the Record (given to my little brother) From Multitudinous Stars and Spring Waters I-IX Pai, Wei = Bai, Wei = Huang Zhang (Zixing, Hunan 1894-1987) Madrid Cheng, Min = Zheng, Min (Minhou, Fuzhou, Fujian 1920-) Evening Rendezvous Student Jung, Tzu = Rong, Zi (1928-) My Dressing Mirror is a Humpbacked Cat Lin, Ling (Sichuan 1938-) Sinking A Cloud Dissects Itself Footpaths Cross in the Rice Field Vague Apprehension, to a gambler Woman Wall Tuo, Ssu = Duo, Si = Chou Tsui-ching = Zhou, Zuijing (Chiayi, Taiwan 1939-) Train Sprout Night Street Hsiung, Hung = Xiong, Hong (1940-) The Pitcher Summer Freezes Here Written in the Sunset "Time is engraved on the pale green faces Of the floating lotus leaves. Our hearts are a sea, a lake, Finally a little pond, where Spider webs interlock over the round leaves, And below them our longing Is only a single drop of dew. Sometimes, suddenly the old story overcomes us. Time triumphs then. And lets down its hair — Shadowy black, Trailing like a willow. The old melancholy Comes from the land of longing. The colors of the sunset thicken. The shadows grow fast on the water. You can tear them, But not tear them away." To Who Stops the Dance? If You Think with Fire Thinking of Someone Lan, Ling (Philippinen 1949-, lives in Taiwan) = Chen Wan-fen = Zhen Wanfen A Melody https://buoy.antville.org/stories/334370/. I Wind shakes the grass. Its upright posture Is torn apart. A voice awakens The ashes. The news is written On vanishing dew. II It encircles the reeds and flows Along the two banks of the stream. The reflection on the water Has no light. Suddenly a splash. The shadow of a face Descends like night on stone. III Leaning against the wind, he stands. Grass withers between his brows. The stars descend into the midnight river, Emptied by the storm. He who has never worn shoes Has gone far away but is still inaudibly near. The Arrival Beyond Silence From The White Color of Nearness Tan, Ying = Dan, Ying = Liu, Baozhen (Perak, Malaysia 1943-) Drinking the Wind Chung, Ling = Zhong, Ling (Chongqing, Sichuan 1945-) Dusk on the Veranda by Lake Mendota The Fall of Moon Lady Before the Landing of Apollo X On the Melting Lake Song of Rootless People Visiting Jen, Jui = Ren, Rui (?) Midnight Li, Chü = Li, Ju = Li, Ru (Shanghai 1942-, lives in Taiwan) Harvesting Wheat for the Public Share Sekundärliteratur 1973 Stephen Owen : Of the many new books of Chinese poetry in translation, this section is unique : the poems, dating from the third century B.C. to the present, are all by women. The translations are followed by notes and a brief essay on the status of women in traditional Chinese society. Considering that only a handful of such poems has been previously translated, the intent is laudable, though perhaps nobler in the conception than in the execution. As the translators acknowledge, some of the earliest poems are of highly questionable authenticity, though they are the most interesting of the early poems. Mr. Rexroth's delicate style has not left him, but it requires something to work with : a number of the poems, particularly some of the Tang selections, are genuinely insignificant, and throughout the book are places where the translators might have chosen better poems. Most of the Yuan, Ming, and Qing selections are delightful, particularly the Ming erotic poems, and well deserve translation. About a third of the book is devoted to twentieth century women poets, and these poems are uniformly interesting. When a poem gets difficult, the translators' imaginations will often supply a solution remarkable both for its ingenuity and incorrectness. The worst disaster is Xue Tao's 'An old poem to Yuan Chen', which from the title to the last line bears very little resemblance to the Chinese text. This book is enjoyable to read and gives the reader the kind of poems he won't get a chance to read elsewhere. It is not scholarship nor does it pretend to be. If one accepts this fact and the fact that it does contain many errors, it is still a pleasurable book and a valuable book in that it introduces many poems which the non-sinologist would never see other wise and which the sinologist might never have thought to look for in the corpus of Chinese poetry. 1988 Shu Yunzhong : In the first place Rexroth chooses many little known women poets for his anthology because their poems, mostly love poems, fit into his literary conceptualization. Out of one hundred and fifteen poems in this collection fifty-one poems deal, in one way or another, with the theme of love. Some of the poets are courtesans or prostitutes and they write about love between man and woman rather openly by Chinese standards. With all their audacity, they still appear to Rexroth too reserved in their treatment of love. To intensify the treatment of human love, Rexroth inserts some words for which we cannot find any equivalent in the original text. |
|
| 10 | 1977 |
Rexroth, Kenneth ; Snyder, Gary. Chinese poetry and the American imagination. [Statements from a symposium, April 1977]. In : Ironwood ; no 17 (1981). Kenneth Rexroth: Chinese poetry began to influence writers in English with the translations into French of Hervey St. Denis and others in the mid-19th century who translated Three Hundred Poems of the T'ang into French free verse. If American and English poets did not read French, the translations of Herbert Giles and other Sinologists like him were practically worthless, because of the doggerel verse in which they were rendered. Probably the most influential was Judith Gautier's Le livre de Jade, which was translated by E. Powys Mathers in Colored Stars and A Garden of Bright Waters. Neither Gautier nor Mathers read Chinese and, in fact, her informant was a Thai who didn't read Chinese either. Nevertheless, these prose poems (which first appeared in Stuart Merrill's Pastels in Prose) came across as deeply moving poetry in English. Approximately contemporarily appeared the first translations by Arthur Waley and, not long after, Ezra Pounds Cathay. Pound and Waley taught the West a kind of irregular iambic pentameter or free verse, in both cases as dependent on quantitative rhythms as on accentual. Chinese poetry, in fact, bears no resemblance to this kind of verse. It is rhymed with considerable emphasis, usually, on the rhymed words, and at first was in four monosyllable lines, or five, or seven, and in addition the tones which distinguished the mean-ings of homonymous Chinese monosyllables came to follow regular patterns. Later in the T'ang, and reaching its flower in the Sung Dynasty, poems were patterned on the irregular lines of songs, as well as being written in the five or seven syllable classic patterns. Learned and industrious people have tried to reproduce in English the original rhythms, but have managed to produce only absurdities. So Chinese poetry has come to influence the West as a special form of Chinese verse— which annoys some more pedantic Sinologists of Chinese ancestry. It is a special kind of free verse and its appearance happened to converge with the movement toward Objectivism, Imagism, and even the Cubist poetry of Gertrude Stein and Pierre Reverdy—"no ideas but in things", as Williams says rather naively. There is almost no rhetorical verse of the kind we find in Augustan Latin and later in Renaissance poetry throughout Europe, nor is there the luxuriously foliate poetry of India (with the possible exception of the Li Sao). There are no true poetic epics in Chinese poetry. The heroic epic of China is an historical novel, The Romance of Three Kingdoms. And, until recent years, the verse of Chinese drama was considered beneath serious literary consideration, although, for instance, "The Flower Burying Song" from the play taken from The Dream of the Red Chamber is quite impressive poetry. There are verse treatises in Chinese comparable to Virgil's Georgies or Horace's Art of Poetry, but even they follow the tendency toward direct presentation of concrete images. Most Chinese poetry, whether elegiac or love poetry, situates die reader in a definite 'mise-en-scene'. "The driving wind and rain tear the banana leaves" we are in the South. "The swallows huddle in their nest under the gilded rafters"—a palace. "I am too weary to pick up my jade inlaid lute"—probably a concubine. "Soon the wild geese will be returning from the North, but they will bring me no message"—he is away fighting the Northern Barbarians. This can become a facile formula, especially when, in the later dynasties, the lines were arranged in strictly parallel couplets, but it is certainly a way to produce effective—affective—poetry, if you are a poet. In fact, it differs little from the poetry envisaged by Wordsworth and Coleridge in the preface to Lyrical Ballads and often realized in their best poems. But so true is it also of Horace's "Under Soracte" or the best poems of Hafiz or the rare poignant imagistic moments in Tennyson's "In Memoriam". Chinese poetry entered the American and, to a much lesser degree, English poetic consciousness at exactly the right moment to purge the rhetoric and moralizing of 19th century Romantic poetry and the even more moralistic, preachy poetry of the '90s. Much of the poetry of Ernest Dowson is little sermons of disappointed Epicureanism. Japanese poetry, which after all is an extremely compressed expression of Chinese aesthetics, became popular among American poets at about the same time and through the same people—Pound, Waley, and Mathers. Today, for a very large sector of American poets, the poetry of the Far East is more influential than 19th and 20th century French poetry, which has dominated the international idiom for so long, and certainly incomparably more influential than American or English poetry of the 19th century. The only rival is the slowly dying influence of "metaphysical" verse of the English Renaissance. It would be possible to name over a hundred American poets deeply influenced by the poetry of the Far East and some who have difficulty in thinking about poetry in any other idiom than Chinese or Japanese. Now, of course, there are a number of poets, by no means uninfluential, who read Chinese and Japanese and who are philosophically Buddhist or Taoist or both. Gary Snyder The fact is that although first and foremost the translations of Ezra Pound Arthur Waley, a little later Witter Bynner, have had a distinctive impact 01 people's thinking and people's poetics, there was another thing that has been very important, running parallel to that right through, and that has been the idea of the Chinese poet, the image that the Chinese poet as a poet, as role model, presented to us. In a simple way, I think, our first Anglo-American received view of the Chinese poets was that they were civil servants. And in a simplified way, then is some truth in this. There were extremes as great perhaps as Han Yu on the one side as a rigorous, benevolent, socially-minded poet, Confucianist all his life; and at the other end, perhaps a poet like Han Shan, who speaks entirely from the hermit's habitat. Yet in actual fact, these two kinds of poetry, which am artificially separating for the moment, were generally produced by the same people. Now to add to the complexity, we have no real models in Occidental poetry of poets who either were staunch, quiet, solid civil servants involved in responsible positions in society for a whole lifetime as a regular type of poet nor do we have on the other hand a real tradition of hermit's poetry in the Occident. So it's all the more interesting to see that these two types of roles o poetry were both in China coming from the same individuals, often at differ¬ent stages within one lifetime, or in some cases, it was just a matter of literally changing hats—Confucian hat to Taoist hat while on a trip to the country. I first responded, in 1949, living in Oregon, to my contact with Chinese poetry on the level of nature; that was what I was interested in. As a student of anthropology beginning to read on Far Eastern matters but really focusing or American Indian studies, I was deeply concerned with the almost abstract questions of philosophy of nature and problems involved when high civilizations impact on nature and impact on natural peoples. As a mountaineer and backpacker, when I read Chinese poetry, I was struck in some of the translations by qualities hard to describe . . . clarity, limpidity, space, and at the same time, a fine, specialized and precise attention and observation of natural detail—natural detail existing and functioning within a very large, 10,000 li, moonlit territory. That was my first interest in it. Later, of course, reading more widely, and still only in translations, I realized that the extent was quite a bit broader, that it went from the Shih Ching (known variously as The Book of Odes, The Book of Songs, and The Confucian Odes) to, say, Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), Shih Ching to Mao Tse-tung, and that it included a vast range of possibilities of content. I also see now how different American poets came to Chinese poetry and received different things. As I looked initially only to the hermit poet/nature poet for inspiration and for a while took that to be what Chinese poetry really was, so a man whose work I valued highly as a teacher in poetic technology, namely Ezra Pound, found in Chinese poetry something else entirely. Pound was delighted with the possibility of poets having political power in a strong bureaucracy. Those perhaps are the two extremes—myself or someone like myself, and Pound or someone like Pound—in their reactions to the role possibilities implied in Chinese poetry. Then we begin to notice something else there, lurking slightly below the surface, slightly further back in time—we see a glimmering in Li Ho, it's there very clearly in the Ch'-u T'zu (The Songs of the South), and we can discern it in certain features in the Shih Ching—and that is the poet as shaman. The shaman-poet role has been explicated for us by Edward Schafer's recent work, The Divine Woman, that brings out a whole range of images and symbols and underlying energies that are in that poetry, that you might not see there at first glance. And yet, to go one more step, finally, for myself, what I go back to Chinese poetry for is its humaneness. I'm going to go back for a second to the introduction to the Shih Ching (compiled circa 600 B.C.), the original classic collection/anthology. "Poetry is to regulate the married couple, establish the principle of filial piety, intensify human relationships, elevate civilization, and improve public morals ". That's Confucius' estimate, or somebody like Confucius, of what poetry should do; and it must have had great influence because that man was highly respected in later centuries. Thinking this one through again, I thought: well, there's a lot of truth in what he says, and actually poetry in a healthy, stable society (in which poets are not forced willy-nilly to all be alienated revolutionaries) does influence the behavior of lovers, and it does make one think of one's parents, and put importance on friendship, and give meaning to history and culture, and improve public manners. So then I thought, yes, poetry should do that. Actually, in a visionary way, what we want poetry to do is guide lovers toward ecstasy, give witness to the dignity of old people, intensify human bonds, elevate the community, and improve public spirit. And so, it is in just that humaneness, that delicate—I'm almost tempted to use the word sweet—appreciation of the details of human life, families, the frustrations of employment with the government, and the frustrations of being a hermit, that we perhaps respond to most deeply in Chinese poetry, having a poetry ourselves which is so different in a way, so mythological, so political and so elevated, that it can't deal with ordinary human affairs often. |
|
| 11 | 1979 | William Stanley Merwin : One evening I picked up Kenneth Rexroth's One hundred poems from the Chinese again, after several years, and read it through once more, at a sitting, with a great wave of gratitude, and a sense of its vividness and life – a book which I have known and read for so many years now. | |
| 12 | 1979 |
Li, Ch'ing-chao [Li, Qingzhao]. Complete poems. Transl. and ed. by Kenneth Rexroth and Ling Chung. [ID D32233]. Joy of Wine, to the tune 'A Dream Song' Springs Ends, to the tune 'A Dream song' Thoughts from the Women's Quarter, to the Tune 'The Silk Washing Brook' To a short version of 'The Magnolia Flower' To the tune 'Picking Mulberries' Two Springs, to the tune 'Small Hills' Red Plum Blossoms, to the tune 'Spring in the Jade Tower' Plum Blossoms, to the tune 'The Honor of a Fisherman' When the Plums by the Back Pavilion Bloomed, to the tune 'An Idle, Lovely Woman' Peonies, to the tune 'I Celebrate the Clear Slow Dawn' Watching Lotuses, to the tune 'Grievance against My Young Lord' Cassia Flower, to the tune 'Partridge Sky' Ninth Day, Ninth Month, to the tune 'Drunk with Flower Shadows' The Beauty of White Chrysanthemums, to the tune 'Beauties' Remorse, to the tune 'Rouged Lips' To the tune 'The Silk Washing Brook' On Spring, to the tune 'The Silk Washing Brook' Spring in the Women's Quarter, to the tune 'Beautiful Nien Nu' The Day of Cold Food, to the tune 'The Silk Washing Brook' Thoughts from the Women's Quarter, to the tune 'The Silk Washing Brook' To the tune 'The Bodhisattva's Headdress' To the tune 'Happiness Approaches' Sorrow of Departure, to the tune 'Cutting a Flowering Plum Branch' Farewell Letter to My Sister Sent from an Inn at Lo Ch'ang, to the tune 'Butterflies love Flowers' To the tune 'You Move in Fragrance' Thoughts from the women's Quarter, to the tune 'Nostalgia of the Flute on the Phoenix Terrace' Autumn Love, 'A Weary Song to a Slow Sad Tune' "Search. Search. Seek. Seek. Cold. Cold. Clear. Clear. Sorrow. Sorrow. Pain. Pain. Hot flashes. Sudden chills. Stabbing pains. Slow agonies. I can find no peace. I drink two cups, then three bowls, Of clear wine until I can't Stand up against a gust of wind. Wild geese fly over head. They wrench my heart. They were our friends in the old days. Gold chrysanthemums litter The ground, pile up, faded, dead. This season I could not bear To pick them. All alone, Motionless at my window, I watch the gathering shadows. Fine rain sifts through the wu-t'ung trees, And drips, drop by drop, through the dusk. What can I ever do now? How can I drive off this word — Hopelessness?" Spring Ends, I, to the tune 'A Complaint of My Young Lord' Spring Ends, II, to the tune 'A Complaint to My Young Lord' Thoughts from the Women's Quarter, to the tune 'The Boat of Stars' To the tune 'The Bodhisattva's Headdress' The Wu-t'ung Tree, to the tune 'Remembering the Girl of Ch'in' Cassia Flowers, to a new version of 'The Silk Washing Brook' Banana Trees, to the tune 'Picking Mulberries' To the tune 'Partridge Sky' Plum Blossoms, to the tune 'Immortals on the River Bank' I Gave a Party to My Relatives on the Day of Purification, to the tune 'Butterflies love Flowers' Fading Plum Blossoms, to the tune 'Perfumed Garden' Spring Fades To the tune 'The Perfumed Garden' I Smell the Fragrance of Withered Plum Blossoms by My Pillow, to the tune 'Unburdening Oneself' Spring Ends, to the tune 'Spring at Wu Ling' To the tune 'A Song of the South' A Song of Departure, to the tune 'Butterflies Love Flowers' "Warm rain and soft breeze by turns Have just broken And driven away the chill. Moist as the pussy willows, Light as the plum blossoms, Already I feel the heart of Spring vibrating. But now who will share with me The joys of wine and poetry? Tears streak my rouge. My hairpins are too heavy. I put on my new quilted robe Sewn with gold thread And throw myself against a pile of pillows, Crushing my phoenix hairpins. Alone, all I can embrace is my endless sorrow. I know a good dream will never come. So I stay up till past midnight Trimming the lamp flower’s smoking wick." On Plum Blossoms, to the tune 'A Little Wild Goose' Written by Chance Sentiment Poems on Yuen Chieh's 'Ode to the Restoration of Tang' to Rhyme with Chang Wen-ch'ien's Poem, I & II Poems Dedicated to Lord Han, the Minister of the Council of Defense, and Lord Hu, the Minister of the Board of Works A Satire on the Lords Who Crossed the Yangtse in Flight from the Chin Troops On History Written on Climbing Eight Poems Tower Our Boat Starts at Night from the Beach of Yen Kuang In the Emperor's Chamber To the Empress To an Imperial Lady To the Imperial Concubine Dream, to the tune 'The Honor of a Fisherman' Written on the Seventh Day of the Seventh Month, to the tune 'You Move in Fragrance' A Morning Dream To the tune 'Clear Peace Happiness Cassia Flowers, to a new version of 'The Silk Washing Brook' At a Poetry Party I Am Given the Chih To the tune 'Immortals on the River Bank' To the tune 'Everlasting Joy' "The sun sets in molten gold. The evening clouds form a jade disk. Where is he? Dense white mist envelops the willows. A sad flute plays "Falling Plum Blossoms". How many Spring days are left now? This Feast of Lanterns should be joyful. The weather is calm and lovely. But who can tell if it Will be followed by wind and rain? A friend sends her perfumed carriage And high-bred horses to fetch me. I decline the invitation of My old poetry and wine companion. I remember the happy days in the lost capital. We took our ease in the women's quarters. The Feast of Lanterns was elaborately celebrated — Gold pendants, emerald hairpins, brocaded girdles, New sashes — we competed To see who was most smartly dressed. Now I am withering away, Wind-blown hair, frosty temples. I am embarrassed to go out this evening Among girls in the flower of youth. I prefer to stay beyond the curtains, And listen to talk and laughter I can no longer share." |
|
| 13 | 1986 |
Rexroth, Kenneth. Tu Fu : poems [ID D32237]. [Du Fu]. "Tu Fu is, in my opinion, and in the opinion of a majority of those qualified to speak, the greatest non-epic, non-dramatic poet who has survived in any language." This is certainly true, but it dodges the issue – what kind of poet is Tu Fu? Not epic, not dramatic, but not in any accepted sense lyric either. Although many of his poems, along with others of the Tang Dynasty, have been sung from that day to this, and although the insistent rhythms, rhymes, and tonal patterns of Chinese verse are lost in free-verse translation so that we do not realize how musical even the most irregular Chinese verse is (the most irregular curiously enough, owes its very irregularity to the fact that it' was written to pre-existing melodies), almost none of Tu Fu's verse is lyric in the sense in which the songs of Shakespeare, Thomass Campion, Goethe, or Sappho are lyric. Rather, his is a poetry of reverie, comparable to Leopardi's "L'lnfinito", which might well be a translation from the Chinese, or the better sonnets of Wordsworth. This kind of elegiac reverie has become the principal form of modern poetry, as poetry has ceased to be a public art and has become, as Whitehead said of religion "What man does with his aloneness". It is this convergence of sensibilities across the barriers of time space, and culture that accounts for the great popularity of Chinese poetry in translation today, and for its profound influence on all major modern American poets. In addition, Tu Fu, although he was by no means "alienated" and at war with society like Baudelaire was in fact cut off from it and spent his life, after a brief career as a high official of Ming Huang, The Bright Emperor, as a wandering exile. His poetry is saturated with the exile's nostalgia and the abiding sense of the pathos of glory and power. In addition, he shares with Baudelaire and Sappho, his only competitors in the West, an exceptionally exacerbated sensibility, acute past belief. You feel that Tu Fu brings to each poetic situation, each experienced complex of sensations and values, a completely open nervous system. Out of this comes the choice of imagery—so poignant so startling, and yet seemingly so ordinary. Later generations of Chinese poets would turn these piercing, uncanny commonplaces into formulas, but in Tu Fu they are entirely fresh, newborn equations of the conscience, and they survive all but the most vulgar translations. Tu Fu is not faultless. As Court Censor, a kind of Tribune of the Patricians, under Su Tsung, the son of Ming Huang, he seems to have been a cantankerous courtier. He took his sinecure job seriously and, an unregenerate believer in the Confucian classics, proceeded to admonish the Emperor on his morals and foreign policy. He was dismissed and spent the rest of his life wandering over China. He stayed longest in his famous grass hut in the suburbs of Ch'eng Tu in Szechuan. As the dynasty disintegrated and China entered on an interregnum, a time of troubles, he started wandering again, slowly, down the great river, always longing for the capital. His last years were spent on a houseboat, and on it, at 59, he died, possibly from overexposure during a flood and storm. This is a troubled enough life, but Tu Fu writes of it with a melancholy that often verges on self-pity. He is a valetudinarian. By the time he was thirty, he was calling himself a white-haired old man. He always speaks of his home as a grass hut and presents himself as being very poor. Actually, though they were thatched, his various houses were probably quite palatial, and he seems never to have relinquished ownership of any of them and always to have drawn revenue from the farms attached to them. He had the mildest literary affection for his wife, whom he did not see for many years. He wrote no love poems to women; as with most of his caste, his passionate relationships were with men. Much of this is just convention, the accepted tone of Chinese poetry of the scholar gentry. Tu Fu's faults are microscopic in comparison with the blemishes that cover Baudelaire like blankets. Behind Baudelaire's carapace is a sensibility always struggling for transcendence. In Tu Fu the vision of spiritual reality is immanent and suffuses every item presented to the senses. Behind the conventions, behind the faults which make him human and kin to all of us, are a wisdom and a humanness as profound as Homer's. No other great poet is as completely secular as Tu Fu. He comes from a more mature, saner culture than Homer, and it is not even necessary for him to say that the gods, the abstractions from the forces of nature and the passions of men, are frivolous, lewd, vicious, quarrelsome, and cruel and that only the steadfastness of human loyalty, magnanimity, compassion redeem the nightbound world. For Tu Fu, the realm of being and value is not bifurcated. The Good, the True, and the Beautiful are not an Absolute, set over against an inchoate reality that always struggles, unsuccessfully, to approximate the pure value of the absolute. Reality is dense all one being. Values are the way we see things. This is the essence of the Chinese world view, and it overrides even the most ethereal Buddhist philosophizing and distinguishes it from its Indian sources. There is nothing that is absolutely omnipotent, but there is nothing that is purely contingent either. Tu Fu is far from being a philosophical poet in the ordinary sense, yet no Chinese poetry embodies more fully the Chinese sense of the unbreakable wholeness of reality. The quality is the quantity the value is the fact. The metaphor, the symbols are not conclusions drawn from the images; they are the images themselves in concrete relationship. It is this immediacy of utterance that has made Chinese poetry in translation so popular with modern Western poets The complicated historical and literary references and echoes disappear; the vocal effects cannot be transmitted. What comes through stripped of all accessories, is the simple glory of the facts—the naked, transfigured poetic situation. The concept of the poetic situation is itself a major factor in almost all Chinese poems of any period. Chinese poets are not rhetorical; they do not talk about the material of poetry or philosophize abstractly about life—they present a scene and an action "The north wind tears the banana leaves." It is South China in the autumn. "A lonely goose flies south across the setting sun." Autumn again, and evening. "Smoke rises from the rose jade animal to the painted rafters." A palace. "She toys idly with the strings of an inlaid lute." A concubine. "Suddenly one snaps beneath her jeweled fingers." She is tense and tired of waiting for her master. This is not the subject matter, but it is certainly the method, of almost all the poets of the modern, international idiom, whether Pierre Reverdy or Francis Jammes, Edwin Muir or William Carlos Williams, Quasimodo or the early, and to my taste best, poems of Rilke. If Isaiah is the greatest of all religious poets, then Tu Fu is irreligious. But to me his is the only religion likely to survive the Time of Troubles that is closing out the twentieth century. It can be understood and appreciated only by the application of what Albert Schweitzer called "reverence for life." What is, is what is holy. I have translated a considerable amount of his poetry, and I have saturated myself with him for forty years. He has made me a better man, a more sensitive perceiving organism, as well as, I hope, a better poet. His poetry answers out of hand the question that worries aestheticians and critics, "What is poetry for?" What his poetry does superlatively is what is the purpose of all art. |
Bibliography (11)
| # | Year | Bibliographical Data | Type / Abbreviation | Linked Data |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1956 | Rexroth, Kenneth. One hundred poems from the Chinese. (New York, N.Y. : New Directions, 1956). | Publication / Rex1 |
|
| 2 | 1966 | Rexroth, Kenneth. An autobiographical novel. (Garden City, N.Y. : Doubleday, 1966). | Publication / Rex19 |
|
| 3 | 1968 |
Rexroth, Kenneth. Tu Fu, Poems. In : Rexroth, Kenneth. Classics revisited. (Chicao, Ill. : Quadrangle Books, 1968). [Du Fu]. http://www.bopsecrets.org/rexroth/cr/4.htm. |
Publication / Rex2 |
|
| 4 | 1969 |
All year long : four ancient folksongs. Transl. from the Chinese by Kenneth Rexroth ; calligraphy by Mai Vo-Dinh. (Santa Barbara, Calif. : Unicorn Press, 1969). (Unicorn broadsheet ; 4). [Enthält] : We break off a branch of poplar catkins. The sultry air is heavy with flower perfumes. A cold wind blows open the window. A freezing sky. |
Publication / Rex15 |
|
| 5 | 1970 | Rexroth, Kenneth. One hundred more poems from the Chinese : love and the turning year. (New York, N.Y. : New Directions, 1970). | Publication / Rex4 |
|
| 6 | 1972 | The orchid boat : women poets of China. Transl. and ed. by Kenneth Rexroth and Ling Chung. (New York, N.Y. : The Seabury Pres ; New Directions, 1972). | Publication / Rex3 | |
| 7 | 1979 | Li, Ch'ing-chao [Li, Qingzhao]. Complete poems. Transl. and ed. by Kenneth Rexroth and Ling Chung. (New York, N.Y. : New Directions, 1979). [Enthält : Ling, Chung. A biography of Li Ch'ing-chao]. | Publication / Rex16 | |
| 8 | 1986 | Rexroth, Kenneth. Tu Fu : poems. In : Rexroth, Kenneth. Classics revisited. (New York, N.Y. : New Directions, 1986). | Publication / Rex20 |
|
| 9 | 1987 | Tu, Fu [Du, Fu]. Thirty-six poems. With text by John Yau ; transl. by Kenneth Rexroth ; with twenty-five etchings by Brice Marden. (New York, N.Y. : Peter Blum, 1987). | Publication / Rex18 | |
| 10 | 2003 | The New Directions anthology of classical Chinese poetry : translations by William Carlos Williams, Ezra Pound, Kenneth Rexroth, Gary Snyder, David Hinton. Ed. by Eliot Weinberger. (New York, N.Y. : New Directions, 2003). | Publication / Pou24 | |
| 11 | 2014 |
Rexroth, Kenneth. Translations from Chinese. In : Kenneth Rexroth Archive. http://www.bopsecrets.org/rexroth/translations/chinese.htm. |
Web / Rex6 |
|
Secondary Literature (11)
| # | Year | Bibliographical Data | Type / Abbreviation | Linked Data |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1957 | Williams, William Carlos. Two new books by Kenneth Rexroth : In defense of the earth by Kenneth Rexroth ; One hundred poems from the Chinese by Kenneth Rexroth : review. In : Poetry ; vol. 90, no 3 (June 1957). | Publication / WillW5 | |
| 2 | 1958 |
Fang, Achilles. One hundred poems from the Chinese by Kenneth Rexroth : review. In : The Journal of Asian studies ; vol. 17, no 4 (1958). http://www.jstor.org/stable/2941200. |
Publication / Rex7 | |
| 3 | 1958 | Bishop, John L. One hundred poems from the Chinese : review. In : Comparative literature ; vol. 10, no 1 (1958). [Kenneth Rexroth]. | Publication / Rex8 | |
| 4 | 1972 | Ling, Chung Odell. Kenneth Rexroth and Chinese poetry : translation, imitation, and adaptation. (Ann Arbor, Mich. : University Microfilms, 1973). Dissertation Wisconsin University, 1972. | Publication / Rex13 | |
| 5 | 1973 |
Owen, Stephen. The orchid boat : women poets of China by Kenneth Rexroth : review. In : The journal of Asian studies ; vol. 33, no 1 (1973). http://www.jstor.org/stable/2052890 |
Publication / Rex10 | |
| 6 | 1984 | Ling, Chung. This ancient man is I : Kenneth Rexroth's renderings of Tu Fu. In : Tamkang review ; vol. 15, nos 1-4 (1984-1985). / In : Renditions 21-22 (1984). | Publication / Rex5 | |
| 7 | 1985 | Lockwood, William J. Kenneth Rexroth's versions of Li Ch'ing Chao. In : Tamkang review, vol. 15, no 1-4 (1984-1985). [Li Qingzhao]. | Publication / Rex17 | |
| 8 | 1986 |
Gibson, Morgan. Revolutionary Rexroth, poet of East-West wisdom. (Hamden, Conn. : Archon Books, 1986). [Enthält] : Rexroth, Kenneth. The heart's garden, the garden's heart. (Cambridge, Mass. : Pym-Randall, 1967). http://www.thing.net/~grist/ld/rexroth/rex-cont.htm. |
Publication / Rex14 | |
| 9 | 1988 | Kahn, Paul. Kenneth Rexroth's Tu Fu. In : Yearbook of comparative and general literature, vol. 37 (1988). | Publication / Rex9 | |
| 10 | 1988 |
Shu, Yunzhong. Communion and deviation : Kenneth Rexroth's approach to classical Chinese poetry. https://www.google.ch/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd= 16&ved=0CFwQFjAFOAo&url=https%3A%2F%2Fojs.lib.byu.edu%2F spc%2Findex.php%2FCCR%2Farticle%2Fdownload%2F12278%2F12176 &ei=69RUU8OfMs7BtAaB0oFY&usg=AFQjCNGaezjrXJzIl5E8Irp D6UpSYnrY4A. |
Web / Rex11 |
|
| 11 | 2004 |
Klein, Lucas. Original / translation : the aesthetic context of Kenneth Rexroth's translations of Du Fu and Li Qingzhao. (2004). [The article contains descriptions of the poems I pass the night at General Headquarters, To the tune 'Plum Blossoms Fall and Scatter', To the tune 'The Honor of a Fisherman'.] http://www.bigbridge.org/issue10/original_translation_from_big_bridge.pdf. |
Publication / Rex12 |
|