Considered the most inovative study of Chinese poetry ever written, François Cheng's Chinese Poetic Writing--now in its first expanded, English-language edition--is an essential read for fans and scholars of Chinese literature and the art of poetry in general.
Francois Cheng is a poet, essayist, novelist, calligrapher, and art historian who has lived in Paris since 1949. Among his books available in English translation are Empty and Full: The Language of Chinese Painting, The Way of Beauty, and the novels The River Below and Green Mountain, White Cloud. In 2002, he became the first person of Asian origin elected to the French Academy. Donald A. Riggs is Teaching Professor of English at Drexel University. He is currently writing entries for the Encyclopedia of Literary and Cinematic Monsters. Jerome P. Seaton is Emeritus Professor of Chinese at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Among his books are The Shambhala Anthology of Chinese Poetry and The Wine of Endless Life: Taoist Drinking Songs from the Yuan Dynasty.
"Every Anglophone reader interested in the working mechanics behind
Chinese poetry will find these texts to be endless resources worth
returning to again and again....Chinese Poetic Writing offers a
richly informative look at the ordering principles implicit in
Chinese language and thought....Although aimed as being
introductory in nature, both A Little Primer of Tu Fu and Chinese
Poetic Writing nonetheless forefront the presentation of the poem
in Chinese characters, clearly emphasizing the importance of the
original language in fully understanding any poetry." —Rain
Taxi
“Cheng’s book, L’ecriture poetique chinoise, soon became a classic
in the already extensive corpus of French translations of Chinese
poetry, and remains a staple of every French sinologist’s
library...Cheng’s work complemented and enhanced a body of French
translations...already impressive for both its quantity and
diversity.”—Paula Varsano
“Cheng, writing in 1977, produces a complex and detailed approach
to Chinese writing practices that complicates both pictographic and
phonological assumptions.”—Scott Nygren
“My...reaction was astonishment that anyone could accomplish the
task [of translation] with such sensitivity and formal tact. Every
line, detail and compositional device in the poems that Cheng
studies is given its appropriate emphasis and placement, so that
not only the individual meaning but the combined significance
emerges with clarity and refreshing illumination. This is that rare
scholarly work that gives pleasure as well as understanding...a
work that represents a definite advance in the study of Chinese
poetry.”—John Kwan-Terry, World Literature Today
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