世新中文 ‧ 中國文學名著英譯選讀教室

Discourses,Essays,and Sketches

THE COURTESAN LI WA

THE TRAGEDY OF PU FEI-YEN

FENG YEN

Postface to a Catalog on a Collection of Bronze and Stone Inscriptions

Li Ch’ing-chao (1084-C.1151)

Thoughts upon Student Huang’s Borrowing of books

Yüan Mei (1716-1797)

Preface to Collected Poems from the Orchid Pavilion

Wang His-chih (C.303-C.361)

Preface to the “Foolish Brook Poems”

Liu Tsung-yüan(773-819)

The arts of Sleeping, Walking, Sitting, and Standing

from The Arts of Living

The Peach Blossom Spring                               

T’ao Ch’ien (365-427)

Li Ch'ing-chao 李清照(tzu, I-an易安, 1084 -c. 1151) is China’s greatest woman poet. Born in Li- Ch’eng歷城 (modern Chi-nan in Shantung), she came from a distinguished literary family. Her father , Li Ko-fei李格非, was a noted prose writer and a member of Su Shih’s* literary coterie; her mother, also a poet, was a granddaughter of the illustrious Grand Councilor Wang Kung-ch'en 王拱辰(1012-1085). Nurtured in such a milieu and naturally gifted, she was recognized as a promising poet while still in her teens. At sixteen she wrote two verses in response to a poem written by her father’s friend, Chang Wen-ch’ien 張文潛.

   Li Po (or Pai) 李白(tzu, T’ai-po太白or T’ai-pai, 701-762) generally shares or competes with Tu Fu * for the honor of being the greatest of the T’ang poets. Li's birthplace is uncertain , perhaps in Central Asia , and a minor branch of Li Po studies centers on the irresolvable question of whether Li was of Turkic origin. Whatever his background , Li grew up in west China (modern Szechwan), and the conventions of the Szechwanese “type” exerted a strong influence on his self-image. The bravura of his poetic voice belonged to a long tradition of poets from the Szechwan region, from Ssu-ma Hsiang-ju * in the Western Han to Ch’en Tzu-ang* in the Early T'ang , and, after Li, to Su Shih* in the Northern Sung.