Where We Find Beautiful Korean Poetry in Chinese

Among the Flowering Reeds: Classic Korean Poems Written in Chinese by Kim Jong-Gil
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

These poems--mostly quatrains, though I'm not sure what rhyme schemes were used in the originals--are exactly what I think of when I imagine classical Chinese poetry. And they are, in fact, written in Chinese, though all come from learned Korean scholars. Many of the poets lived in China and served at court or in the civil service; others remained in Korea and served at court; and others, including some women writers, never achieved either. But all were highly educated in Chinese, because for most of the period covered here (roughly 800-1900 C.E.), all writing done at court in Korea was in Chinese.

The literary models they followed were also Chinese, though the topics and treatments are not quite the same. (Another collection like this was published as The Moonlit Pond: Korean Classical Poems in Chinese, translated by Sung-Il Lee. I really enjoyed that one as well.) In outward form, these seem very Chinese--most of the poems make use of nature imagery; most are written as if spoken to a friend or written in a letter; most contain a speaker who is talking about himself. A nice example is this poem by Yi Kok, who served without great distinction at court in China as well as in Korea (and gave the collection its title):

To a Friend

On a small boat, my lifelong wish unattained,
I return home, hair already white, laughing at myself.
Still I dream of service at the Emperor's court
and forget that I am now among the flowering reeds.

The mountains and northern snows show up in a lot of this poetry, as in this poem by Kwon Kap:

At the Old Capital

The moonlit snow, the color of a former dynasty,
the cold bell, sound of the old country.
I stand pensively on the southern lookout;
clouds rise at dawn above the castle ruins.

There aren't too many female poets represented here, but here is an example of a love poem from Yi Ok-bong:

To a Lover

How are you getting along these days, by lord?
The moon shines at my window and I am sad.
Had I left footprints where I went in my dreams,
the stone path to your gate would have turned to sand.

I love those last two lines. She's visited his home so often in dreams, the stone should be pulverized by now.

The translation works well, in my opinion. No effort has been made to rhyme in English--which I approve of--and the typically elliptical language has been smoothed out a bit for us in most places, though some lines are kept nearer the terse Chinese original, as in the line above: "The cold bell, sound of the old country." We are given articles but no verb, which is a fair accommodation for English-speaking brains. And if the language itself isn't inspired in every line of translation, it is at least good enough that it doesn't draw attention to itself. I enjoyed it.

I find this a very successful collection. Wonderful poetry, an accessible translation, and a nice assortment of poets. The only thing I would have like better is just more of it. Another 100 poems would be nice.

Recommended.

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