Three Chinese Poets is a book of poetry by the titular poets Wang Wei, Li Bai and Du Fu translated into English by Vikram Seth. The Three Poets were contemporaries and are considered to be amongst the greatest Chinese poets by many later scholars. The three have been described as a Buddhist recluse, a Taoist immortal and a Confucian sage respectively. Though this trichotomy has been criticised as simplistic and artificial, it can act as a guiding approximation. They lived in the Tang dynasty and the political strife at that time affected all of their lives very much and this impact is evident in the poetry of all three.
It is not clear whether Wang Wei and Li Bai ever met, but they had a mutual friend in Meng Haoran. Li Bai and Du Fu did meet and in fact Du Fu greatly admired Li Bai.
In the introduction of Three Chinese Poets, Seth talks about the influence of translations on his life and work; that while sometimes he has been so moved by a translation that he learnt another language to read the original, he doubts that he would ever be able to do this as much as he wished to. However, he says that Charles Johnston's translation of Aleksandr Pushkin's Eugene Onegin, Richard Wilbur's translation of Molière's Tartuffe and Robert Fitzgerald's translation of the Iliad have helped him enter worlds without which would have been out of his reach. He states that he avoided the style and philosophy of the famous translations by Ezra Pound which was to read and deeply understand a poem then to create an approximate translation inspired by the original - the judge of the merit being whether the new poem is a good poem in the new language. Instead he wanted to follow the example of the translators mentioned above to retain a greater fidelity and to try to preserve structure such as rhyme. He stresses that while he has tried not to lose meaning, he has often failed, explaining that because each word is much more important in poetry, the problem of losing associations of words is much greater than when translating prose. He also makes note that any satisfaction derived from the tonality of the poems is necessarily lost because of the non-tonality of English.
Contents
Wang Wei
Deer Park
Birdsong Brook
Lady Xi
Grieving for Meng Haoran
Remembering my Brothers in Shandong on the Double-Ninth Festival
The Pleasures of the Country
Autumn Nightfall in my Place in the Hills
Zhongnan Retreat
Living in the Hills: Impromptu Verses
Lament for Lin Yao
Ballad of the Peach Tree Spring
Li Bai
In the Quiet Night
A Song of Qui-pu
The Waterfall at Lu Shan
Question and Answer in the Mountains
Seeing Meng Hoaran off to Yagzhou
Listening to a Monk from Shu Playing the Lute
The Mighty Eunuchs' Carriages
Drinking Alone with the Moon
Bring in the Wine
The Road to Shu is Hard
Du Fu
Thoughts while Travelling at Night
Spring Scene in Time of War
Moonlit Night
The Visitor
Thoughts on an Ancient Site: The Temple of Zhu-ge Liang
The Chancellor of Shu
An Autumn Meditation
Dreaming of Li Bai
To Wei Ba, who has Lived Away from the Court
The Old Cypress Tree at the Temple of Zhu-ge Liang
Li Bai, formerly pronounced Li Bo, courtesy name Taibai (太白), was a Chinese poet acclaimed as one of the greatest and most important poets of the Tang dynasty and in Chinese history as a whole. He and his friend Du Fu (712–770) were two of the most prominent figures in the flourishing of Chinese poetry under the Tang dynasty, which is often called the "Golden Age of Chinese Poetry". The expression "Three Wonders" denotes Li Bai's poetry, Pei Min's swordplay, and Zhang Xu's calligraphy.
Wang Wei was a Chinese musician, painter, poet, and politician of the middle Tang dynasty. He is regarded as one of the most distinguished men of arts and letters of his era. About 400 of his poems survived and 29 of them are included in the 18th-century anthology Three Hundred Tang Poems. A large portion of his finest poems drew inspirations from the local landscape.
Meng Haoran was a major Tang dynasty poet, and a somewhat older contemporary of Wang Wei, Li Bai and Du Fu. Despite his brief pursuit of an official career, Meng Haoran spent most of his life in and around his hometown Xiangyang of the Hubei Province living like a hermit, while creating poems inspired by its landscapes and milieu.
Romance of the Three Kingdoms is a Chinese television series adapted from the classical 14th century novel of the same title by Luo Guanzhong. The series was produced by China Central Television (CCTV) and was first aired on the network in 1994. It spanned a total of 84 episodes, each approximately 45 minutes long. One of the most expensive television series produced at the time, the project was completed over four years and involved over 400,000 cast and crew members, including divisions of the People's Liberation Army from the Beijing, Nanjing and Chengdu military regions. Some of the dialogue spoken by characters was adapted directly from the novel. Extensive battle scenes, such as the battles of Guandu, Red Cliffs and Xiaoting, were also live-acted.
Chen Zi'ang, courtesy name Boyu (伯玉), was a Chinese poet of the Tang dynasty. He was important in helping to bring into being the type of poetry which is considered to be characteristically "Tang". Dissatisfied with the current state of the affairs of poetry at the time, almost paradoxically, by keeping his eye on the remote antiquity he helped usher in a new age of Chinese poetry. He would soon be followed by such poets of the golden age of Tang poetry as Wang Wei, Li Bai, and Du Fu.
The Three Hundred Tang Poems is an anthology of poems from the Chinese Tang dynasty (618–907). It was first compiled around 1763 by Sun Zhu (1722–1778), who was a Qing Dynasty scholar and was also known as Hengtang Tuishi. Various later editions also exist. All editions contain slightly more than 300 total poems. The number 300 was a classic number for a poetry collection due to the influence of the Classic of Poetry, which was generally known as The Three Hundred Poems.
The Old History of the Five Dynasties was an official history mainly focusing on Five Dynasties era (907–960), which controlled much of northern China. And it also includes some history of other south states during the era. It was compiled by the Song dynasty official-scholar Xue Juzheng in the first two decades of the Song dynasty, which was founded in 960. It is one of the Twenty-Four Histories recognized through Chinese history.
Tang poetry refers to poetry written in or around the time of or in the characteristic style of China's Tang dynasty, and/or follows a certain style, often considered as the Golden Age of Chinese poetry. The Complete Tang Poems includes over 48,900 poems written by over 2,200 authors. During the Tang dynasty, poetry continued to be an important part of social life at all levels of society. Scholars were required to master poetry for the civil service exams, but the art was theoretically available to everyone. This led to a large record of poetry and poets, a partial record of which survives today. The two most famous poets of the period were Li Bai and Du Fu. The Qing dynasty selection, Three Hundred Tang Poems, has made Tang poetry familiar to educated Chinese in modern times.
Three Kingdoms is a 2010 Chinese television series based on the events in the late Eastern Han dynasty and the Three Kingdoms period. The plot is adapted from the 14th century historical novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms and other stories about the Three Kingdoms period. Directed by Gao Xixi, the series had a budget of over 160 million RMB and took five years of pre-production work. Shooting of the series commenced in October 2008, and it was released in China in May 2010.
The Water Margin is a 1998 Chinese television series adapted from Shi Nai'an's classical 14th-century novel of the same title. It was produced by CCTV with Zhang Jizhong as producer. It was first broadcast in China in January 1998. The series also featured action choreography by Yuen Woo-ping.
All Men Are Brothers is a 2011 Chinese television series adapted from Shi Nai'an's 14th century novel Water Margin, one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature. The series is directed by Kuk Kwok-leung and features cast members from mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong. The series was first broadcast on 8TV in March 2011 in Malaysia.
Sun Zhu (1711–1778) was a Qing scholar. He was also known as Hengtang Tuishi and was the original compiler and editor of the anthology Three Hundred Tang Poems, a popular compilation of Tang poetry, partly designed as a study aid for students. An enduring classic, Sun Zhu's version has often been reprinted, often in revised or re-edited editions.
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Simians of various sorts are an important motif in Chinese poetry. Examples of simian imagery have an important place in Chinese poetry ranging from the Chu Ci poets through poets such as Li Bai, Wang Wei, Du Fu, and more. Various poetic concepts could be communicated by the inclusion of simian imagery in a poem, and the use of simian allusions can help provide key insights into the poems. The use of simians in Chinese poetry is part of a broader appearance of macaques and other monkeys in Chinese culture as well as the monkey-like gibbons and sometimes monkey-like creatures from Chinese mythology.
Kui Prefecture, Kuizhou Circuit, or Kuizhou was initially established in 619 CE, as a renaming of the existing Xin Prefecture. Kuizhou was an important area from the beginning and through the end of the Tang dynasty of China, when it was alternatively part of several of the Circuits which made up typical large scale political structural organizations of the Tang era. Kuizhou continued as a political entity through the end of the Song dynasty, during which it was of Provincial level, a typical large scale political organization of Song era. Kui Prefecture was located in what is now eastern Chongqing. During the Song dynasty, Kuizhou's capital was located in what is now Fengjie County, Chongqing, and the extent of the province was to what today includes Chongqing, eastern Sichuan, and Guizhou. Part of the importance of Kuizhou was related to its prominent location along the Yangzi River. Kui was also known for its spectacular scenerary, and being a location in which exiled poets wrote their laments.
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