Poems of solitude

the long version

The six Chinese poets who are represented in this anthology are all medieval and date from the seven hundred years following the beginning of the Three Kingdoms in 220 A.D. They are not therefore contemporaries, nor do they form a school. They share a mood, subtle and infinitely variable, that gives them each a place in this collection. We are inclined to forget that the Chinese poet is always a civil servant, a diplomat, or a public figure. With the frequent political changes that have been China's birthright, many of her finest artists found themselves exiles and rebels. Juan Chi, the third-century poet, preserved his life with a studied eccentricity and almost continual drunkenness. Li Yü, a monarch-poet of the tenth century, had two separate political careers, the second ending in his being ordered to take poison. Pao Chao was killed in a rebellion, while Wang Wei and P'e Ti, the joint authors of Forty Poems of the River Wang sought refuge in obscurity. But lest this should lead the reader to expect poetry of violence and sudden death, it must be added that these five and the sixth and greatest, Li Ho "the ghost," who died at the age of twenty-six, but is one of the poetic glories of the amazing cultural heyday of T'ang, all are poets of peace. They found comfort not in indifference, but in the serenity of nature, in birds and rivers. They are all poets of landscape, and human beings appear only fleetingly. Theirs is a rich solitude, and much of its richness has been transmuted to us in this book. The combination of a Chinese scholar and a poet has preserved what is so often lost in translation in authenticity and rhythm.. - Jacket flap.