Where Burton Watson Schools Us

The Columbia Book of Chinese Poetry by Burton Watson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is a very nice collection of Chinese poetry, filled with wonderful literature from many time periods, but it is also a useful survey for students or others new to these works.

Much of the literature here is available in other collections, especially the poetry from the biggest Tang writers, but a lot of it was still new to me. And the introduction, chapter openings, and back matter were very useful, even for bits I'd read elsewhere. Burton Watson does an excellent job of explaining and teaching those of us in the West who are unfamiliar with the references and common symbols and the like or are still working out the differences between the various poetic forms. It's hard (but not impossible) to appreciate poetry in translation if you don't have some of these additional helps, and I appreciate how well Burton Watson supported us.

I still prefer books that are collections of works all by a single author--for the same reason that I prefer the original albums to "best of" albums, which are nice but lacking something--so I don't have quite the same feeling when I read collections like this, with examples from so many different authors. It feels somewhat artificial in a way I can't entirely defend. But it obviously has its uses, and this is a very good example of that type of collection. In addition to presenting some very fine poetry and educating me on it, a benefit of books like this one is tipping me off to "new" poets (from 1000 years ago or 800 years ago!) that may have whole books of just their work done by some helpful translator that I can now go look for. I have a few such names that I intend to follow up on.

In general, I love Chinese poetry for it's themes and simple clarity--so much is about loving the land, admiring a beautiful landscape, drinking wine with a neighbor, growing vegetables on a small plot, looking out over a river for a sail you recognize, and other romantic topics--and there's a bunch of that here. I'm aware that there can be many important messages buried in such simple-looking lines, which the editor sometimes clues us into, but even without that it's possible to love much of this literature. My favorites? Wang Wei, Li Po, and Tu Fu, out of the Tang era (who are so popular it is kind like saying you like Shakespeare, but it's true), and Su Tung-p'o, from the later Sung era. However, I'm now on the hunt for books focused on Lu Yu, Mei Yao-ch'en, and a few others. That alone makes it worth looking into this collection.

Wish me luck finding them.

New readers especially should take a look at this collection. Recommended.

View all my reviews