Authors: Li Po, Tu Fu, Arthur Cooper (Translator), Arthur Cooper (Introduction), Arthur Cooper
ISBN-13: 9780140442724, ISBN-10: 0140442723
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated
Date Published: July 1973
Edition: (Non-applicable)
Li Po, a legendary carouser, was an itinerant poet who is unsurpassed in the scope of his fanciful imagination and who soars to sublime heights in his descriptions of natural scenes and powerful emotions. He has been called 'the immortal of poets'. Tu Fu is a more popular poet. His experiences of civil war imbue his work with great compassion and earthy reality, shot through with humour and desolation, as he views everyday life with an artist's insight. Together these two poets of the T'ang dynasty cover the whole spectrum of human life and feeling, and are often appropriately referred to as one poet, 'Li-Tu'. Arthur Cooper's excellent introduction chronicles the lives and times of Li Po and Tu Fu, and sets the spiritual, social and aesthetic background to the translations, which are works of poetry in their own right. The Chinese calligraphy in this volume is by Shui Chien-tung.
Acknowledgements | 9 | |
Pronunciation of Chinese Words and Names | 11 | |
Note on the Chinese Calligraphy | 13 | |
Introduction | 15 | |
1 | 'Li-Tu' | 15 |
2 | The Background to their Times | 20 |
3 | Li Po | 22 |
4 | Tu Fu | 37 |
5 | The Background to T'ang Poetry: The Beginnings: The 'Book of Odes', The Language and Script | 44 |
6 | The Background to T'ang Poetry: The Ch'u Tz'u | 60 |
7 | The Background to T'ang Poetry: The Ballads and the Principles of Chinese Syllabic Metre | 62 |
8 | A Demonstration by Ballad | 65 |
9 | The Approach to Translation in this Book | 76 |
10 | The Tones and the 'Chinese Sonnet' | 88 |
11 | Reading the Poems in English | 101 |
Li Po | 103 | |
Tu Fu | 161 | |
List of Titles | 245 | |
Index of First Lines | 247 |