A Lute of Jade: Selections from the Classical Poets of China

A Lute of Jade gathers some of the finest poems from China's Tang dynasty, that golden age when poetry was the highest art form and every literate person composed verses. L. Cranmer-Byng's 1909 translations capture something the best renderings achieve: the sense that you're hearing a voice across centuries, slightly muffled but unmistakably human. These are poems of snow on mountain passes, of drinking alone by moonlight, of friends parted at dawn. Li Po soars and falls; Tu Fu meditates on dust and exile; the anonymous authors of earlier lyrics speak of longing with startling directness. The对中国诗歌传统的-window this anthology opens is narrow but deep. You'll finish it in an afternoon, but the images will return to you at unexpected moments: a heron lifting from reeds, a bell fading in the night wind, the moon as it was when these verses first met air.