The Shambhala Anthology of Chinese Poetry

Seaton is a Master. This Anthology must stand among the best collections of Chinese Poetry in English translation. I enjoy every page. His intricate knowledge of Chinese history and the cultural environment of so many dynasties enables him to make the modern reader feel part of a moment that transcends ages. His translations are simple, beautiful, powerful and graceful all with a sense of dignity and a sense of humor!

My copy of A Drifting Boat has travelled with me and grown battered and dog-eared and well-worn. Now Seaton has given me another volume to read and re-read, for the poetry, since I'm not an academic, and to recommend to other poetry readers. This is a wonderful book.

In the admittedly rather small world of Chinese literature in translation, J. P. Seaton is a superstar: but even by the standards of those who cater for this niche market, he's always played hard to get. His relatively few but varied publications, always themselves small in scale, frequently in small editions, usually brought out by little presses, and often also small in physical size, have been snapped up by the cognoscenti and subsequently much sought after by those who missed out on their first appearance. His early contributions to Sunflower Splendour were easily the most readable and `literary' translations that this important but frequently tin-eared anthology was able to offer its readers. He has always been one of that small but influential band of American scholar-translators of Chinese literature whose work delights as much for its elegance and skill as for its accuracy. We are at long last being treated to a liberal sample from the best of these. Shambhala have amassed a magnificent `Selected Translations' from the pen of the master, calling it, perhaps a little mischievously, The Shambhala Anthology of Chinese Poetry. Well, it certainly does cover a huge span of time, ranging from some of the earliest recorded poems (dating from perhaps one and a half millennia BCE) right up to the first three decades of the last century; but it would be fair to say that it remains a delightfully quirky and idiosyncratic miscellany. It's divided into just four sections (which is in itself a witty and audacious feat). From Before: the Beginning (thirty pages) takes us up to the end of the Han dynasty. A Time of Trials (fifteen pages) fast forwards through the next three turbulent centuries or so. The Golden Age (fifty-six pages) encompasses the Tang dynasty's own three centuries of major achievement, and represents the very heart of the book. In Part Four, A Few Strong Voices Still Singing (sixty-eight pages), the succeeding dynasties from that founded by the first Song emperor to that bloodily created by the ill-fated Guomintang's Generalissimo whizz by. Of Mao's even more monstrous and destructive régime (despite its hideous progenitor's own much-vaunted love of classical poetry) nothing is said, and none of its poets are represented. Each of these sections contains many imperishable gems, revelatory and exemplary translations, not a few from the hands of lesser-known writers (often culled from China's long and venerable Chan-Buddhist tradition) as well as just a few space-fillers, which I can only hope are early exercises. Seaton's version of Zhang Ji's Moored at Maple Bridge, for instance, inserts a quite gratuitous simile: `like a stone struck'--which certainly can't have been derived from any of the seven characters that occur in the original fourth and final line, and which is wholly uncharacteristic of this translator's usually minimalist approach to his work (however, it's immediately preceded by a quite brilliant rendering of t

In traditional Chinese culture, poetry was a source of entertainment, instruction, prestige, and even political authority. Ably translated and carefully edited by J. P. Seaton (Professor of Chinese at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill), "The Shambhala Anthology Of Chinese Poetry" is an impressive and scholarly compilation of Chinese poets and poetry from the classic `Shih Ching' era down to the twentieth century. No academic library collection can be considered complete or comprehensive without its inclusion as a core addition to their Poetry and Literary Studies reference shelves. `Moonlight Night': Moon of the night, in Fu-chou,/along in your chamber you gaze./Here, far away, I think of the children,/too young to remember Longpeace.../Fragrant mist, moist cloud of your hair./In that clear light, your arms jade cool./When, again, to lean together, by your curtain there,/alight alike, until our tears have dried. Tu Fu (712-770).

VLADIMIR: You should have been a poet. ESTRAGON: I was. (looks at his rags.) Isn't that obvious? (silence.) Yes, J.P.Seaton was and still is a poet, although he wasn't wearing rags last time I saw him. But in addition to that, he is a Professor of Chinese with a long and distinguished career behind him. These qualities combine to make him uniquely suited to translating the Chinese scholar/poets of the past, with whom he has a good deal in common. Carolyn Kizer calls him "the finest living translator and explicator of Chinese poetry", and I am confident that many readers, after being entertained and moved by these translation, will agree with her. This book is for scholars and general poetry readers alike; it presumes no pre-acquaintace with Chinese literature and in addition to the splendid poems, provides an excellent and headache-free tour of the history and background of the poetry and poets. Highly recommended! Xuan Lin