Originally published by Oxford University Press in 1970 as The Poetry of T'ao Ch'ien by James Robert Hightower, this QPUE Revised Edition offers the full original text of this major contribution to our knowledge of Tao Qian's 陶潛 (a.k.a. Tao Yuanming 陶淵明) poetry, with the following features: - Older Wade-Giles transliteration fully updated and revised to pinyin. - Chinese characters pertaining to the poems added. - Text fully re-typeset and proofed for typographical errors and inconsistencies. - Indices added: Index of Poem Titles; Index of First Lines; extensive general Index that includes Chinese characters.
Keywords: Chinese Poetry Tao Qian 陶潛 (Tao Yuanming 陶淵明) 365-427 Six Dynasties (222-589) Criticism and interpretation Translation and Commentary.
"Even the shortest and most selective list of famous Chinese poets would have to find a place for Tao Qian 陶潛 [aka Tao Yuanming 陶淵明], one of the truly great writers in all of Chinese literature [...] He belongs to the period of the first flowering of Chinese lyric poetry, the Six Dynasties (222-589), [...] between the two imperial dynasties, the Han 漢 and the Tang 唐.
" Tao Qian reflects the conflicts and contradictions of the period, and his poetry best expresses the dilemma of the man of good will born into the troubled times of medieval China. As a poet he does more than give meaning to a particularly unhappy period of Chinese history; he belongs to that small group of poets who are properly called philosophical, who crystallize attitudes toward life that are valid in other times and places. To his contemporaries he was remarkable, not as a poet, but as a man of integrity who refused offers of government employment, a man who preferred a life of poverty and hardship to comfort and respectability that had to be purchased at the price of compromising his principles."
From Hightower's Introduction.
Hightower's translation and study of Tao Qian's poetic corpus has long been the touchstone and major contribution to our knowledge of Tao Qian's poetry and the persona that it reveals. This translation includes all the surviving poetry. Each translation is followed by explanatory material that makes it possible for the Western reader to approach this poetry with the kind of background information that an informed Chinese reader would bring to his interpretation of the poems.
Quirin Press is proud to bring out this extensively Revised Edition of a much sought-after title that has been out of print for far too long.
For more details including a full Table of Contents visit: www.quirinpress.com
Paperback
Size: xxii + 307 pp. 6 x 9 in. / 234 x 156 mm.
Includes bibliographical references (pp. xix-xxii)
Index of Poem Titles
Index of First Lines
General Index
