Three Chinese Poets

''Three Chinese Poets'' is a book of poetry by the titular poets Wang Wei, Li Bai and

Du Fu Du Fu (; 712–770) was a Tang dynasty poet and politician. Along with his elder contemporary and friend Li Bai (Li Po), he is frequently called the greatest of the Chinese poets.Ebrey, 103. His greatest ambition was to serve his country as ...

translated into English by

Vikram Seth Vikram Seth (born 20 June 1952) is an Indian novelist and poet. He has written several novels and poetry books. He has won several awards such as Padma Shri, Sahitya Academy Award, Pravasi Bharatiya Samman, WH Smith Literary Award and Crosswor ...

. 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 Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...

recluse, a

Taoist Taoism (, ) or Daoism () refers to either a school of philosophical thought (道家; ''daojia'') or to a religion (道教; ''daojiao''), both of which share ideas and concepts of Chinese origin and emphasize living in harmony with the ''Tao'' ...

immortal and a

Confucian Confucianism, also known as Ruism or Ru classicism, is a system of thought and behavior originating in ancient China. Variously described as tradition, a philosophy, a Religious Confucianism, religion, a humanistic or rationalistic religion, ...

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 The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, t= ), or Tang Empire, was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907 AD, with an Zhou dynasty (690–705), interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dyn ...

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 Meng Haoran (; 689/691–740) 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 mainly lived in and wrote about the area in which he was ...

. 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 Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin (; rus, links=no, Александр Сергеевич ПушкинIn pre-Revolutionary script, his name was written ., r=Aleksandr Sergeyevich Pushkin, p=ɐlʲɪkˈsandr sʲɪrˈɡʲe(j)ɪvʲɪtɕ ˈpuʂkʲɪn, ...

's Eugene Onegin, Richard Wilbur's translation of Molière's Tartuffe and

Robert Fitzgerald Robert Stuart Fitzgerald (; 12 October 1910 – 16 January 1985) was an American poet, literary critic and translator whose renderings of the Greek classics "became standard works for a generation of scholars and students".Mitgang, Herbert (Janua ...

's translation of the

Iliad The ''Iliad'' (; grc, Ἰλιάς, Iliás, ; "a poem about Ilium") is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the ''Odysse ...

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 Ezra Weston Loomis Pound (30 October 1885 – 1 November 1972) was an expatriate American poet and critic, a major figure in the early modernist poetry movement, and a Fascism, fascist collaborator in Italy during World War II. His works ...

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.

* 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 ** A Fine Lady ** Grieving for the Young Prince ** Ballad of the Army Carts {{Vikram Seth Poetry anthologies Books by Vikram Seth 1992 poetry books

Contents