Product Description
Late in life, Meng Chiao (A.D. 751--814) developed an experimental poetry of virtuosic beauty, a poetry that anticipated landmark developments in the modern Western tradition by a millennium. With the T'ang Dynasty crumbling, Meng's later work employed surrealist and symbolist techniques as it turned to a deep introspection. This is truly major work-- work that may be the most radical in the Chinese tradition. And though written more than a thousand years ago, it is remarkably fresh and contemporary. But, in spite of Meng's significance, this is the first volume of his poetry to appear in English.

Until the age of forty, Meng Chiao lived as a poet-recluse associated with Ch'an (Zen) poet-monks in south China. He then embarked on a rather unsuccessful career as a government official. Throughout this time, his poetry was decidedly mediocre, conventional verse inevitably undone by his penchant for the strange and surprising. After his retirement, Meng developed the innovative poetry translated in this book. His late work is singular not only for its bleak introspection and "avant-garde" methods, but also for its dimensions: in a tradition typified by the short lyric poem, this work is made up entirely of large poetic sequences. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

tremendous
I love Hinton's translations of Meng Chiao's poems. Others are great (Stephen Owen and A.C. Graham), but Hinton's language is less direct, more suggestive, and in that way more impressionistic. This seems 'right' to me because I feel this is the style in which mountains and streams tradition artists painted landscapes - it was not so direct, was full of allusion, and certainly impressionistic. Meng Chiao's writing itself is among the most internal or 'non-objective' of T'ang period poetry, often carrying an undertone of loss or grief. Buddhist ideas of emptiness and compassion are there, though usually very subtley. His poetry feels very personal, which is a great deal of what I so like about it - he expresses human complexity amazingly well, and I think Hinton does a tremendous job of expressing that through his translations...

The Late Poetry of Meng Chiao
I bought this book on the rcommendation that it is a good sample of translated Meng Chiao poems to use as a guide, because I translateJade Culture of China, and Chinese poetry that relates to the Jade Culture. But I found the translations poor for the high standards of a published work.

Translated works on Chinese Poetry need more commentary, and show the Chinese. This work did not.

If need be I can provide an example or two of a translation problem with this work.

Frank

Go with the flow the river knows. ... Read more