Selected Masterpieces By Bai Juyi

Bai Juyi (772-846), a great poet of the Tang Dynasty of China, is a famous and very influential writer in Chinese literary history. Called the King of Poetry, his writing is realistic, on a wide variety of topics, and simple and "down-to-earth". Here are five of what many consider to be his masterpieces, in a fresh English translation, and accompanied by the original Chinese. Their titles are: Song of Eternal Regret, Journey of the Lute, The Charcoal Seller, Farewell at the Grasslands, and On Seeing Wheat Harvesters.

The clouds rise on my exited chest. The birds I see widest back to nest. One day, I’ll stand on the steep crest, And oversee small hills of the rest. Fan Qiang, a great poet living in China, has spent five years carefully translating Chinese classical poems penned hundreds of years ago by such literary masters as Li Bai, Du Fu, Su Shi and Li Qingzhao etc.. While attempting to stay true to the original meaning of the poems and the rhymes in English, He also pays homage to the artistic qualities of each of the one hundred and sixty-two included verses. Shared in both Chinese and English languages, the poems mostly reflect on the beauty of nature and its creatures. Included are his meticulous notes that address the meanings and reasons behind the writings as well as how Chinese traditional culture influenced the poets. The Daya of West Lake is a collection of translated poetic masterpieces, from Chinese to English, sure to please anyone interested in Chinese classical poetry.

This publication catalogue focuses on twelve masterpieces of Chinese landscape and figure paintings. An essay by Wen C. Fong presents an in-depth stylistic analysis and contextual history of the famed Riverbank; a detailed physical analysis is also included. An extended essay by Maxwell K. Hearn examines all twelve major paintings in the book, which range in date from the tenth to the early eighteenth century. -- Metropolitan Museum of Art website.

Po Chu-i (772-846 C.E.) is the quintessential Chinese poet. For although clear thought and depth of wisdom inform the work of all major Chinese poets (as opposed to the complexity and virtuosity often valued in the West), Po makes clarity itself his particular vision.

This is the first complete study of China's most popular eighteenth-century poet in any Western language. The work consists of a detailed biography, a study of Yuan's revolutionary reinterpretation of Chinese literary theory, and an analysis of his many contributions to the more original genres of Qing-dynasty (1644-1911) poetry such as narrative, historical, didactic, eccentric, and nature verse. The study is concluded by a generous and representative sampling of Yuan's poetry in translation, the first to do justice to the wide variety and richness of his oeuvre. Although many shorter poems are selected, this is the first translation to include his outstanding longer poetry. Harmony Garden will completely revise current attitudes in the west concerning classical Chines literature during the eighteenth century, a period that was long viewed as one of decline, but now appears to equal the golden ages of antiquity.