Wai-lim Yip (;

Jyutping Jyutping is a romanisation system for Cantonese developed by the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong (LSHK), an academic group, in 1993. Its formal name is the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong Cantonese Romanization Scheme. The LSHK advocates fo ...

:Jip6 Wai4-lim4,

pinyin Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese fo ...

: Yè Wéilián; born June 20, 1937), is a Chinese poet, translator, critic, editor, and professor of Chinese and comparative literature at UC San Diego. He received his PhD in comparative literature from

Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...

. He is also a visiting teacher at China's

Peking University Peking University (PKU; ) is a public research university in Beijing, China. The university is funded by the Ministry of Education. Peking University was established as the Imperial University of Peking in 1898 when it received its royal charte ...

and

Tsinghua University Tsinghua University (; abbr. THU) is a national public research university in Beijing, China. The university is funded by the Ministry of Education. The university is a member of the C9 League, Double First Class University Plan, Projec ...

Life

Yip was born in

Guangdong Guangdong (, ), alternatively romanized as Canton or Kwangtung, is a coastal province in South China on the north shore of the South China Sea. The capital of the province is Guangzhou. With a population of 126.01 million (as of 2020 ...

province. At the age of 12, he moved to

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a List of cities in China, city and Special administrative regions of China, special ...

, where he started writing poetry and was active on the poetry scene. He graduated from

National Taiwan University National Taiwan University (NTU; ) is a public research university in Taipei, Taiwan. The university was founded in 1928 during Japanese rule as the seventh of the Imperial Universities. It was named Taihoku Imperial University and served d ...

(BA, 1959) and went on to

National Taiwan Normal University National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU; ), or ''Shīdà'' is an institution of higher education and normal school operating out of three campuses in Taipei, Taiwan. NTNU is the leading research institute in such disciplines as Education and ...

(MA, 1961), where he did a thesis on T.S. Eliot and translated "

The Waste Land ''The Waste Land'' is a poem by T. S. Eliot, widely regarded as one of the most important poems of the 20th century and a central work of Modernist poetry in English, modernist poetry. Published in 1922, the 434-line poem first appeared in the ...

." In 1963 he went to the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

to attend the

Iowa Writers' Workshop The Iowa Writers' Workshop, at the University of Iowa, is a celebrated graduate-level creative writing program in the United States. The writer Lan Samantha Chang is its director. Graduates earn a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) degree in Creative ...

at the

University of Iowa The University of Iowa (UI, U of I, UIowa, or simply Iowa) is a public research university in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. Founded in 1847, it is the oldest and largest university in the state. The University of Iowa is organized into 12 co ...

, whose director,

Paul Engle Paul Engle (October 12, 1908 – March 22, 1991), was an American poet, editor, teacher, literary critic, novelist, and playwright. He is remembered as the long-time director of the Iowa Writers' Workshop and as co-founder of the International W ...

, went to

Taipei Taipei (), officially Taipei City, is the capital and a special municipality of the Republic of China (Taiwan). Located in Northern Taiwan, Taipei City is an enclave of the municipality of New Taipei City that sits about southwest of the ...

to negotiate permission for Yip's wife Tzu-mei and their daughter to leave Taiwan; he received an MFA in 1964. He then did graduate work at

, receiving a PhD in

comparative literature Comparative literature is an academic field dealing with the study of literature and cultural expression across linguistic, national, geographic, and disciplinary boundaries. Comparative literature "performs a role similar to that of the study ...

in 1967. In the same year he joined the faculty of

University of California, San Diego The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego is ...

, with which he has been affiliated ever since. In 1970 he returned to National Taiwan University as a visiting professor of comparative literature. In 1980 he joined the Department of English at the

Chinese University of Hong Kong The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) is a public research university in Ma Liu Shui, Hong Kong, formally established in 1963 by a charter granted by the Legislative Council of Hong Kong. It is the territory's second-oldest university and ...

as a visiting professor. Since then, he has visited mainland China many times, teaching comparative literature at

and

. Yip's poetic theory, relating modernist poetry to

Taoist Taoism (, ) or Daoism () refers to either a school of philosophical thought (道家; ''daojia'') or to a religion (道教; ''daojiao''), both of which share ideas and concepts of Chinese origin and emphasize living in harmony with the '' Tao ...

aesthetics, has been very influential in Taiwan. In recent years he has been the object of considerable attention in China, with exhibitions of his archives and conferences devoted to his poetry, as well as publication of his Complete Works in nine volumes.Jerome Rothenberg
Wai-lim Yip
August 24, 2009.

Works

*''Ezra Pound's Cathay'', Princeton University Press, 1969. *''Modern Chinese Poetry: Twenty Poets from the Republic of China, 1955-65'', University of Iowa Press, 1970. *''Chinese Poetry: Major Modes and Genres'', U. C. Press/Duke University Press, 1976; *''Reading the Modern and the Postmodern: Meditations on Living Spaces and Cultural Spaces'', Taipei: Tatung, 1992. *''Diffusion of Distances: Dialogues Between Chinese and Western Poetics'', University of California Press, 1993.
UC Press E-Books
*''Between Landscapes'', Santa Fe: Pennywhistle Press, 1994 oems in English *''Between/Entre'', New Native Press, 2008 rilingual collection of Yip's poetry *Translation of a poem by

Chen Lin (Han dynasty) Chen Lin (陳琳 ; ; died 217), courtesy name Kongzhang (孔璋), was an official, scholar and poet who lived during the late Eastern Han dynasty of China. He was one of the "Seven Scholars of Jian'an". He later served as Military Advisor to Ca ...

called "Water the Horses at a Breach in the

Great Wall The Great Wall of China (, literally "ten thousand Li (unit), ''li'' wall") is a series of fortifications that were built across the historical northern borders of ancient Chinese states and Imperial China as protection against Eurasian noma ...

References

External links

UCSD faculty pageDa Ya Culture Bio-Bibliographical Summary
{{DEFAULTSORT:Yip, Wai-Lim Modern Chinese poetry 1937 births Living people Chinese literary critics Republic of China translators People's Republic of China translators Writers from Zhongshan Poets from Guangdong Educators from Guangdong University of California, San Diego faculty National Taiwan University faculty Taiwanese poets Republic of China poets 20th-century Chinese translators 21st-century Chinese translators