Nineteen Ways of Looking at Wang Wei, Week 2 of 2

[x_los]

This week, we're finishing Eliot Weinberger's "Nineteen Ways of Looking at Wang Wei". This short book discusses many ways to translate a single, brief Tang dynasty poem and the choices involved therein. This week, we'll look at the last ten poems. 

I'll reproduce the translations under discussion here, but c/ping from the pdf is not very reliable and frequently introduces errors. I'm including the text here primarily as a reference point for our discussions: I advise you to look at the book file itself for your reading.

What Next III: Back to the Nextening

[x_los]

For our upcoming project, we're considering one of the open source titles from De Gruyter's Library of Chinese Humanities. They're free to access, have significant introductions and substantial footnotes, and are bilingual.

- The Works of Li Qingzhao: China's Foremost Woman Poet: This Song poet's surviving oeuvre is about 200 pages, or 89 pieces. It might take us about 18 weeks.

- Cao Zhi: I heard the Caos were really pivotal but I didn't have a good text to attach to that before now. Cao Zhi is offering us such hits as, 'Numinous Mushroom Song'.

- "Ruan Ji is usually mentioned first among the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove. The other sages [included] Xi Kang[,] his lover". This couple has a combo volume: cute.

- There's a big fat Du Fu, if anyone wants more Du Fu.

- Coming soon, THAT CRAZY BITCH LI HE (the one that got kicked out of the 300 for being too Weird). "His poems famously explored ghostly, supernatural and fantastic themes." I do think he's rather esoteric, and might be best saved for later.

Still later, we did want to hit the Chu Ci. There's a decent looking recent edition, but also a Hawkes Chu Ci. (We could potentially do either, or both at once.)

I'd like us to start the new title Monday, so if you have preferences you haven't told me about elsewhere regarding these titles, the once we've floated in earlier posts or something entirely fresh, this is your chance to say something.