Jonathan Chaves (born June 8, 1943), B.A. Brooklyn College, 1965; M.A. Columbia University, 1966; PhD Columbia University, 1971, is Professor of Chinese Language and Literature at The George Washington University in Washington, D.C. He is a translator of classic Chinese poetry.
He published the first books in English or any Western language on such masters as Mei Yaochen 梅堯臣 (1002–60); Yang Wanli 楊萬里 (1127-1206); Yuan Hongdao 袁宏道 (1568-1610); the painter Wu Li 吳歷(1632-1718; as a poet); and Zhang Ji 張籍 (c.766-c.830). Eliot Weinberger, in his book 19 Ways of Looking at Wang Wei, cites Chaves among the 4 best scholar-translators of Chinese poetry in English, [1] placing him with translators Burton Watson, A.C. Graham and Arthur Waley.
He is the 2014 recipient of the American Literary Translators Association’s Lucien Stryk Prize for his book Every Rock a Universe: The Yellow Mountains and Chinese Travel Writing. [2] His book Pilgrim of the Clouds: Poems and Essays from Ming China by Yuan Hung-tao and His Brothers was a finalist for the National Book Award in the translation category. [3] He and co-author J. Thomas Rimer won the 1998 Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission Prize for the Translation of Japanese Literature for their translation of the Wakan rōeishū titled Japanese and Chinese Poems to Sing: The Wakan Rōei Shū (Columbia University Press, 1997). [4]
Chaves’ research has emphasized the relationship between poetry and painting in China, encompassing comparisons with Japanese and Western poetry and painting. He was invited to curate an exhibition on the interrelationships between painting, poetry and calligraphy at The China Institute in America (New York), which took place in 2000, and produced a catalog from that exhibit called The Chinese Painter as Poet. [5]
Chaves also has published on Chinese-language poetry Kanshi in Japan. In 1997, he and J. Thomas Rimer published the first translation and study in any Western language (English) of the bilingual (Japanese and Chinese) anthology of the early 11th century, Japanese and Chinese Poems to Sing: The Wakan Rōei Shū (Columbia University Press, 1997). This won the 1998 Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission Prize for the Translation of Japanese Literature. [4]
He has also published original poetry, both in modernist style and in neo-formalist metrical forms with rhyme, in such literary magazines as IRONWOOD, 19 (1982, pp. 134–135), THE GREENFIELD REVIEW (Vol. 11, 1 & 2 double issue, 1983, pp. 145–146), and CHRONICLES: A Magazine of American Culture (May, 2009, pp. 12, 26-27; September, 2015, p. 17; October, 2016, pp. 15 and 41; November, 2017, p. 24; June, 2019 , pp. 20 and 41; July, 2020, pp. 22 and 42 ), ACADEMIC QUESTIONS, July, 2020 (three poems). In 2023 he published a book of his poems, "Surfing the Torrent," Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock Resource Publications.
Classical Chinese poetry is traditional Chinese poetry written in Classical Chinese and typified by certain traditional forms, or modes; traditional genres; and connections with particular historical periods, such as the poetry of the Tang dynasty. The existence of classical Chinese poetry is documented at least as early as the publication of the Classic of Poetry (Shijing). Various combinations of forms and genres have developed over the ages. Many or most of these poetic forms were developed by the end of the Tang dynasty, in 907 CE.
Burton Dewitt Watson was an American sinologist, translator, and writer known for his English translations of Chinese and Japanese literature. Watson's translations received many awards, including the Gold Medal Award of the Translation Center at Columbia University in 1979, the PEN Translation Prize in 1982 for his translation with Hiroaki Sato of From the Country of Eight Islands: An Anthology of Japanese Poetry, and again in 1995 for Selected Poems of Su Tung-p'o. In 2015, at age 88, Watson was awarded the PEN/Ralph Manheim Medal for Translation for his long and prolific translation career.
Lucien Stryk was an American poet, translator of Buddhist literature and Zen poetry, and former English professor at Northern Illinois University (NIU).
Bill Porter is an American author who translates under the pen-name Red Pine. He is a translator of Chinese texts, primarily Taoist and Buddhist, including poetry and sūtras. In 2018, he won the American Academy of Arts & Letters Thornton Wilder Prize for translation.
Fujiwara no Kintō, also known as Shijō-dainagon, was a Japanese poet, admired by his contemporaries and a court bureaucrat of the Heian period. His father was the regent Fujiwara no Yoritada and his son Fujiwara no Sadayori. An exemplary calligrapher and poet, he is mentioned in works by Murasaki Shikibu, Sei Shōnagon and in a number of other major chronicles and texts.
The Wakan Rōeishū is an anthology of Chinese poems and 31-syllable Japanese waka for singing to fixed melodies.
Hiroaki Sato is a Japanese poet and prolific translator who writes frequently for The Japan Times. He has been called "perhaps the finest translator of contemporary Japanese poetry into American English". Sato received the Japan–U.S. Friendship Commission Prize for the Translation of Japanese Literature in 1999 for his translation of Breeze Through Bamboo by Ema Saikō and in 2017 for The Silver Spoon: Memoir of a Boyhood in Japan by Kansuke Naka.
Sōiku Shigematsu is a Japanese priest of Myoshin-ji branch of Rinzai School of Zen Buddhism, abbot of Shōgen-ji Temple in Shimizu-ku, Shizuoka, author and translator of books and essays on Zen that were instrumental in spreading interest in Zen literary tradition to the West in the latter half of the 20th century. Shigematsu taught English literature at Shizuoka University also visiting the United States on several occasions, most notably in 1985-6 as a Fulbright scholar. He won the Jerome J. Shestack Poetry Prize from The American Poetry Review in 1987.
Jeffrey Angles (ジェフリー・アングルス) is a poet who writes free verse in his second language, Japanese. He is also an American scholar of modern Japanese literature and an award-winning literary translator of modern Japanese poetry and fiction into English. He is a professor of Japanese language and Japanese literature at Western Michigan University. Among his awards are the Japan–U.S. Friendship Commission Prize for the Translation of Japanese Literature in 2009 for his translation of Forest of Eyes: Selected Poems of Tada Chimako by Tada Chimako and the 2017 Yomiuri Prize for Literature in the poetry category for his own Japanese-language poetry collection Watashi no hizukehenkosen.
Zhang Ji, courtesy name Wenchang (文昌), was a Tang dynasty poet and scholar.
Wei Yingwu , courtesy name Yibo (義博), art name Xizhai (西齋), was a Chinese poet of the Tang dynasty. Twelve of Wei Yingwu's poems were included in the influential Three Hundred Tang Poems anthology. He was also known by his honorific name Wei Suzhou (韋蘇州), which was bestowed upon him as a result of his service as the governor of Suzhou.
Classical Chinese poetry genres are those genres which typify the traditional Chinese poems written in Classical Chinese. Some of these genres are attested to as early as the publication of the Classic of Poetry, dating from a traditionally, and roughly, estimated time of around 10th–7th century BCE, in what is now China, but at that time was composed of various independent states. The term "genres" refers to various aspects, such as to topic, theme, and subject matter, what similes or metaphors were considered appropriate or how they would be interpreted, and other considerations such as vocabulary and style. These genres were generally, but not always independent of the Classical Chinese poetry forms. Many or most of these forms and genres were developed by the Tang dynasty, and the use and development of Classical Chinese poetry genres actively continued up until the May Fourth Movement, in 1919, and still continues even today in the 21st century.
J. Thomas Rimer is an American scholar of Japanese literature and drama. He is a Professor Emeritus of Japanese Literature, Theatre, and Art at the University of Pittsburgh. He has served as the chief of the Asian Division of the Library of Congress.
Ming poetry refers to the poetry of or typical of the Ming dynasty (1368–1644). With over one million specimens of Ming poetry surviving today, the poetry of the Ming dynasty represents one of the major periods of Classical Chinese poetry, as well as an area of active modern academic research. Ming poetry is marked by 2 transitional phases, the transition between the Yuan dynasty which was the predecessor to the Ming, and the Qing-Ming transition which eventually resulted in the succeeding Qing dynasty. Although in politico-dynastic terms, the dynastic leadership of China is historically relatively clear-cut, the poetic periods involved encompass the lifespans and works of poets whose lives and poetic output transcend both the end of one dynasty and the initiatory period of the next.
Qing poetry refers to the poetry of or typical of the Qing dynasty (1644–1911). Classical Chinese poetry continued to be the major poetic form of the Qing dynasty, during which the debates, trends and widespread literacy of the Ming period began to flourish once again after a transitional period during which the Qing dynasty had established its dominance. Also, popular versions of Classical Chinese poetry were transmitted through Qing dynasty anthologies, such as the collections of Tang poetry known as the Complete Tang Poems and the Three Hundred Tang Poems. The poetry of the Qing Dynasty has an ongoing and growing body of scholarly literature associated with its study. Both the poetry of the Ming dynasty and the poetry of the Qing dynasty are studied for poetry associated with Chinese opera, the developmental trends of Classical Chinese poetry and the transition to the more vernacular type of Modern Chinese poetry, as well as poetry by women in Chinese culture.
Heian literature or Chūko literature refers to Japanese literature of the Heian period, running from 794 to 1185. This article summarizes its history and development.
Eleanor Goodman is an American poet, writer, and translator of Chinese. Her 2014 translation of the poems of Wang Xiaoni, Something Crosses My Mind was an international finalist for the Griffin Poetry Prize and a winner of the Lucien Stryk American Literary Translators Association Prize for excellence in translation.
The Lucien Stryk Asian Translation Prize is a prize that recognizes the best translation into English of book-length texts of Asian poetry or Zen Buddhism. It was established by an anonymous donor in 2010, and is named for Lucien Stryk, the American Zen poet and translator.
Ye Chun is a Chinese American writer and literary translator. Her book of poetry, Lantern Puzzle, won the 2011 Berkshire Prize. She received an NEA fellowship in 2015 and a Pushcart Prize for her poem "The Luoyang Poem" in 2017, a second Pushcart Prize in 2018 for her story, "Milk,", and a third in 2020 for her story, "Hao." Her collection of stories, Hao, was published by Catapult in 2021 and was longlisted for 2022 Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in fiction. It was named a Lithub's favorite book of the year, a New York Public Library's best book of 2021, and Electric Lit's Favorite Short Story Collection of the year. Her debut novel in English, Straw Dogs of the Universe, was published by Catapult in 2023 and longlisted for 2024 Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in fiction and named a Washington Post's notable work of the year.
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