The Book of Songs: The Ancient Chinese Classic of Poetry: Amazon.ca: Stephen Owen, Joseph R. Allen, Arthur Waley: Books

Inside This Book (Learn More)

First Sentence
The Book of Songs opens with the youngest and most celebrated part of the collection: "The Airs of the States" (Guo feng). Read the first page

Explore More
Concordance

Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover

Tag this product

(What's this?)

Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organize and find favorite items.

Customer Reviews

1 Review

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

Average Customer Review

4.0 out of 5 stars (1 customer review)

Share your thoughts with other customers:

Create your own review

Most helpful customer reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Introduction to a Difficult Book, Nov 6 2001

By

Thomas F. Ogara (Jacksonville, FL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Book of Songs: The Ancient Chinese Classic of Poetry (Paperback)

The Book of Songs (Shi Jing) is one of the seminal works of Chinese Civilization, along with the Book of Changes (Yi Jing), the Book of History (Shu Jing) and the Book of Rites (Li Chi). All four of these books were already old when Confucius flourished, and tradition states that they were edited by him into their present form.

Old indeed they are, and virtually inaccessible even to those fairly proficient in Chinese. A mere knowledge of the Classical idiom is no guarantee of understanding them; The Yi Jing in its original Chinese is little more than a skein of characters strung together, each one of them generally to be understood on its own rather than as part of a sentence. The Shi Jing is a book of poetry, but it is poetry from a remote antiquity; it contains many words that occur nowhere else in Chinese literature, the poems usually don't rhyme any more (yes, Chinese poetry rhymes!) and no doubt some of the poems date back to an extremely remote shamanistic past in Chinese history. They are venerated for the moral message contained in them, and also for the spontaneity to life that they express - a quality that is prized so highly in East Asian culture. It is a taproot of East Asian thought, just as the psalms and Homer are for the West.

Which makes Waley's translation all the more amazing, in that he could actually produce a work that is so absorbing and edifying. Waley was something of a genius of translation; he never visited the Far East - he claimed it would ruin his impression of it - but he translated so much of the best of Chinese and Japanese literature, and he did it so well. Some of the items he translated have never been attempted by anybody else, and while there are other translations of the Shi Jing his is far and away the best one to read.

Those who are familiar with Waley's other works may find the book a disappointment, which is unfortunate. This is an extremely difficult work to translate, much harder than the Analects, to say nothing of the popular Chinese novels that Waley also did into English. The problem is bringing the material to life, and I feel that Waley did as much as could be done with it.

This book was, I believe, out of print for quite a few years. I'm glad to see it's back.

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews

Was this review helpful to you? Yes No

Report abuse

Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review

› See the customer review...

Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com ^(beta)

Amazon.com: 3.0 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews)

58 of 59 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Introduction to a Difficult Book, Nov 6 2001

By Thomas F. Ogara - Published on Amazon.com

This review is from: The Book of Songs: The Ancient Chinese Classic of Poetry (Paperback)

The Book of Songs (Shi Jing) is one of the seminal works of Chinese Civilization, along with the Book of Changes (Yi Jing), the Book of History (Shu Jing) and the Book of Rites (Li Chi). All four of these books were already old when Confucius flourished, and tradition states that they were edited by him into their present form.

Old indeed they are, and virtually inaccessible even to those fairly proficient in Chinese. A mere knowledge of the Classical idiom is no guarantee of understanding them; The Yi Jing in its original Chinese is little more than a skein of characters strung together, each one of them generally to be understood on its own rather than as part of a sentence. The Shi Jing is a book of poetry, but it is poetry from a remote antiquity; it contains many words that occur nowhere else in Chinese literature, the poems usually don't rhyme any more (yes, Chinese poetry rhymes!) and no doubt some of the poems date back to an extremely remote shamanistic past in Chinese history. They are venerated for the moral message contained in them, and also for the spontaneity to life that they express - a quality that is prized so highly in East Asian culture. It is a taproot of East Asian thought, just as the psalms and Homer are for the West.

Which makes Waley's translation all the more amazing, in that he could actually produce a work that is so absorbing and edifying. Waley was something of a genius of translation; he never visited the Far East - he claimed it would ruin his impression of it - but he translated so much of the best of Chinese and Japanese literature, and he did it so well. Some of the items he translated have never been attempted by anybody else, and while there are other translations of the Shi Jing his is far and away the best one to read.

Those who are familiar with Waley's other works may find the book a disappointment, which is unfortunate. This is an extremely difficult work to translate, much harder than the Analects, to say nothing of the popular Chinese novels that Waley also did into English. The problem is bringing the material to life, and I feel that Waley did as much as could be done with it.

This book was, I believe, out of print for quite a few years. I'm glad to see it's back.

2 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Of historic interest, but dead boring., Jun 2 2010

By P. Wing - Published on Amazon.com

This review is from: The Book of Songs: The Ancient Chinese Classic of Poetry (Paperback)

I found most of the poems in this collection to be dry and boring, on topics that were not timeless. I imagine a historian might find them more engaging.

I have had better luck with Kenneth Rexroth's translations of Chinese and Japanese poems. Perhaps he has chosen poems that I found more engaging than those in this collection.

› Go to Amazon U.S. to see both reviews 3.0 out of 5 stars

Listmania!

Create a Listmania! list

Look for similar items by subject

Feedback

Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?

The Book of Songs: The Ancient Chinese Classic of Poetry [Paperback]

Formats

Product Details

Tag this product

Customer Reviews

Listmania!

Look for similar items by category

Look for similar items by subject

Feedback