The Book Of Songs

First published in 1937. The Book of Songs is a collection of ancient Chinese songs, dating from 800 to 600 B.C. Until this was published in 1937 it had not been translated into English since the middle of nineteenth century, when sinology was still in its infancy. For the first time the original meaning of 290 out of the 305 songs is given, use being made of the advances in the study of old Chinese. The result is not merely a clear picture of early Chinese life, but also the restoration to its proper place in world literature of one of the finest collection of traditional songs.

Claimed by some to have been compiled by Confucius in the 5th century BCE, the Book of Songs is an ancient anthology of Chinese poetry. Produced using traditional Chinese bookbinding techniques, this newly-translated edition is a selected anthology of 25 classic poems presented in an exquisite dual-language edition.

This is the first systematic literary study of one of the masterpieces of classical Arabic literature, the fourth/tenth century Kitâb al-aghânî (The Book of Songs) by Abû I-Faraj al-Isbahânî. Until now the twenty-four volume Book of Songs has been regarded as a rather chaotic but priceless mine of information about classical Arabic music, literature and culture. This book approaches it as a work of literature in its own right, with its own internal logic and coherence. The study also consistently integrates the musical component into the analysis and proposes a reading of the work in which individual anecdotes and poems are related to the wider context, enhancing their meaning.

The Homeric epics and the Book of Songs are not just the fountainheads of the Western and Chinese literary traditions; for centuries they played a central role in education and communal life, and thus exercised a lasting influence on both civilizations. This volume presents the first systematic comparison of the two corpora. Part One analyzes their genesis and their reception, while Part Two discusses their characteristics as poetic creations. The book brings together Chinese and Western sinologists and classicists, and so promotes significant interdisciplinary and intercultural dialogue. Though the contributors rank among the leading experts in their fields, the essays here are accessible not only to their peers, but also to the interested ‘general reader’, and so to all those who seek a deeper understanding of Chinese and Western civilizations, their common human basis and their characteristic differences.

This book is a history of love and the challenge love offers to the laws and customs of its times and places, as told through poetry from the Song of Songs to John Milton’s Paradise Lost. It is also an account of the critical reception afforded to such literature, and the ways in which criticism has attempted to stifle this challenge. Bryson and Movsesian argue that the poetry they explore celebrates and reinvents the love the troubadour poets of the eleventh and twelfth centuries called fin’amor: love as an end in itself, mutual and freely chosen even in the face of social, religious, or political retribution. Neither eros nor agape, neither exclusively of the body, nor solely of the spirit, this love is a middle path. Alongside this tradition has grown a critical movement that employs a 'hermeneutics of suspicion', in Paul Ricoeur’s phrase, to claim that passionate love poetry is not what it seems, and should be properly understood as worship of God, subordination to Empire, or an entanglement with the structures of language itself – in short, the very things it resists. The book engages with some of the seminal literature of the Western canon, including the Bible, the poetry of Ovid, and works by English authors such as William Shakespeare and John Donne, and with criticism that stretches from the earliest readings of the Song of Songs to contemporary academic literature. Lively and enjoyable in its style, it attempts to restore a sense of pleasure to the reading of poetry, and to puncture critical insistence that literature must be outwitted. It will be of value to professional, graduate, and advanced undergraduate scholars of literature, and to the educated general reader interested in treatments of love in poetry throughout history.

They say that whatever you're going through in life, Aretha has probably recorded a song about it. Well, it's not just Aretha. Just been dumped? Roy Orbison has the song to get you through. Furious about the state of the world? Patti Smith knows how you feel. 'The Illustrated Book of Songs' is a collection of lists about the music that makes up the soundtrack to our lives, featuring hundreds of songs, old and new, famous and not-so-famous. With intriguing trivia, idle musings and cool illustrations of your favourite performers and songs. Illustrations: Patricia Ghijsens-Ezcurdia.

It feels great to get into a rhythm! Establishing a feeling for the beat is central to all rhythmic development, and with The Book of Songs and Rhymes with Beat Motions children of all ages can enjoy fun games while developing a feel for rhythm patterns. Whether felt in the hands, the feet, or with the whole body, the games in this book will have all participants keeping the beat. Because they are easy to learn and fun to play, songs and rhymes with beat motions are a wonderful way to engage children, while at the same time planting seeds of musical sensitivity and imagination. This special book, for the first time, collects the most cherished of these songs and rhymes (some in danger of being lost or forgotten), enabling your family to carry on the tradition of laughter and learning for generations!