''Three Chinese Poets'' is a 1992 collection of

Vikram Seth Vikram Seth (born 20 June 1952) is an Indian people, Indian novelist and poet. He has written several novels and poetry books. He has won several awards such as Padma Shri, Sahitya Akademi Award, Pravasi Bharatiya Samman, WH Smith Literary Awar ...

's English translations of poetry by Wang Wei,

Li Bai Li Bai (, 701–762), Literary and colloquial readings, also pronounced Li Bo, courtesy name Taibai (), was a Chinese poet acclaimed as one of the greatest and most important poets of the Tang dynasty and in Chinese history as a whole. He and hi ...

and

Du Fu Du Fu (; 712–770) was a Chinese poet and politician during the Tang dynasty. Together with his elder contemporary and friend Li Bai, Du is often considered one of the greatest Chinese poets of his time. His greatest ambition was to serve ...

. These three poets were contemporaries and are considered to be among the greatest Chinese poets by many later scholars. The three have been described as a

Buddhist Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or ...

recluse, a

Taoist Taoism or Daoism (, ) is a diverse philosophical and religious tradition indigenous to China, emphasizing harmony with the Tao ( zh, p=dào, w=tao4). With a range of meaning in Chinese philosophy, translations of Tao include 'way', 'road', ...

immortal and a

Confucian Confucianism, also known as Ruism or Ru classicism, is a system of thought and behavior originating in ancient China, and is variously described as a tradition, philosophy, religion, theory of government, or way of life. Founded by Confucius ...

sage respectively. Though this trichotomy has been criticised as simplistic and artificial, it can act as a guiding approximation. They lived in the

Tang dynasty The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, c=唐朝), or the Tang Empire, was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907, with an Wu Zhou, interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dynasty and followed ...

and the political strife at that time affected all of their lives very much and this impact is evident in the poetry of all three. It is not clear whether Wang Wei and Li Bai ever met, but they had a mutual friend in

Meng Haoran Meng Haoran (; 689/691–740) was a Chinese poet and a major literary figure of the Tang dynasty. He was somewhat an older contemporary of Wang Wei, Li Bai and Du Fu. Despite his brief pursuit of an official career, Meng Haoran spent most of hi ...

. Li Bai and Du Fu did meet and Du Fu greatly admired Li Bai. In the introduction to ''Three Chinese Poets'', Seth, who has a Stanford ABD in Chinese studies and has translated other Chinese works, talks about the influence of translations on his life and work. He highlights Charles Johnston's translation of

Aleksandr Pushkin Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin () was a Russian poet, playwright, and novelist of the Romantic era.Basker, Michael. Pushkin and Romanticism. In Ferber, Michael, ed., ''A Companion to European Romanticism''. Oxford: Blackwell, 2005. He is consid ...

Eugene Onegin ''Eugene Onegin, A Novel in Verse'' (, Reforms of Russian orthography, pre-reform Russian: Евгеній Онѣгинъ, романъ въ стихахъ, ) is a novel in verse written by Alexander Pushkin. ''Onegin'' is considered a classic of ...

Richard Wilbur Richard Purdy Wilbur (March 1, 1921 – October 14, 2017) was an American poet and literary translator. One of the foremost poets, along with his friend Anthony Hecht, of the World War II generation, Wilbur's work, often employing rhyme, and c ...

's translation of

Molière Jean-Baptiste Poquelin (; 15 January 1622 (baptised) – 17 February 1673), known by his stage name Molière (, ; ), was a French playwright, actor, and poet, widely regarded as one of the great writers in the French language and world liter ...

Tartuffe ''Tartuffe, or The Impostor, or The Hypocrite'' (; , ), first performed in 1664, is a theatrical comedy (or more specifically, a farce) by Molière. The characters of Tartuffe, Elmire, and Orgon are considered among the greatest classical theat ...

and

Robert Fitzgerald Robert Stuart Fitzgerald (12 October 1910 – 16 January 1985) was an American poet, literary critic and translator whose renderings of the Greek classics "became standard works for a generation of scholars and students".Mitgang, Herbert (Januar ...

's translation of the

Iliad The ''Iliad'' (; , ; ) is one of two major Ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the ''Odyssey'', the poem is divided into 24 books and ...

. He writes that he wanted to avoid the approach taken by

Ezra Pound Ezra Weston Loomis Pound (30 October 1885 – 1 November 1972) was an List of poets from the United States, American poet and critic, a major figure in the early modernist poetry movement, and a Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Ita ...

, which was to prioritise creating a good poem, using an approximate translation based on the translator's deep understanding of the poem. Seth preferred to follow the example of the translators he admired, prioritising fidelity and preserving formal features such as rhyme. He stresses the difficulty of preserving meaning and word associations when translating poetry. He also notes that any satisfaction derived from the tonality of the original poems is necessarily lost because of the non-tonality of English. Eleven of Seth's translations of Du Fu from this volume were later included in the first section of ''The Rivered Earth'' (2011), a collection of libretti written by Seth and set to music by

Alec Roth Alec Roth (1948) is an English composer. He is best known for his collaboration with Vikram Seth to produce the opera ''Arion and the Dolphin'' in 1994 based on the myth of Arion. Roth studied music from 1976 as a mature student at Durham Univers ...

* Wang Wei ** Deer Park ** Birdsong Brook ** Lady Xi ** Grieving for Meng Haoran ** Remembering my Brothers in Shandong on the Double-Ninth Festival ** The Pleasures of the Country ** Autumn Nightfall in my Place in the Hills ** Zhongnan Retreat ** Living in the Hills: Impromptu Verses ** Lament for Lin Yao ** Ballad of the Peach Tree Spring * Li Bai ** In the Quiet Night ** A Song of Qui-pu ** The Waterfall at Lu Shan ** Question and Answer in the Mountains ** Seeing Meng Hoaran off to Yagzhou ** Listening to a Monk from Shu Playing the Lute ** The Mighty Eunuchs' Carriages ** Drinking Alone with the Moon ** Bring in the Wine ** The Road to Shu is Hard * Du Fu ** Thoughts while Travelling at Night ** Spring Scene in Time of War ** Moonlit Night ** The Visitor ** Thoughts on an Ancient Site: The Temple of Zhu-ge Liang ** The Chancellor of Shu ** An Autumn Meditation ** Dreaming of Li Bai ** To Wei Ba, who has Lived Away from the Court ** The Old Cypress Tree at the Temple of Zhu-ge Liang ** A Fine Lady ** Grieving for the Young Prince ** Ballad of the Army Carts

References

{{Vikram Seth Poetry anthologies Books by Vikram Seth 1992 poetry books

Contents

References