The Selected Poems of Tu Fu: Expanded and Newly Translated by David Hinton - Softcover

Fu, Tu

Softcover

ISBN 10: 081122838X ISBN 13: 9780811228381

Publisher: New Directions, 2020

Synopsis

A new and substantially expanded version of Hinton’s landmark translation of Tu Fu, published on the thirtieth anniversary of that original edition

A newly translated and substantially expanded version of Hinton’s landmark Tu Fu, published on the thirtieth anniversary of the original edition

Tu Fu (712–770 C.E.) has for a millennium been widely considered the greatest poet in the Chinese tradition, and Hinton’s original translation played a key role in developing that reputation in America. Most of Tu Fu’s best poems were written in the last decade of his life, as an impoverished refugee fleeing the devastation of civil war. In the midst of these challenges, his always personal poems manage to combine a remarkable range of possibilities: elegant simplicity and great complexity, everyday life and grand historical drama, private philosophical depth and social engagement in a world consumed by war. Through it all, his is a wisdom that can only be called elemental, and his poems sound remarkably contemporary:

Leaving the City

It’s bone-bitter cold, and late, and falling

frost traces my gaze all bottomless skies.

 

Smoke trails out over distant salt mines.

Snow-covered peaks slant shadows east.

 

Armies haunt my homeland still, and war

drums throb in this far-off place. A guest

 

overnight here in this river city, I return

again to shrieking crows, my old friends.

About this title

About the Author

Tu Fu (712–770) was a Chinese poet of the Tang Dynasty. His poetry prominently features themes of morality and history, and is known for its adherence to strict structural forms. Tu Fu lived during the devastating An Lushan Rebellion and this experience was reflected in his later work.

DAVID HINTON’s original Selected Poems of Tu Fu was the first full-length verse translation of Tu Fu published in America. The author also of singular books of essays and poetry, Hinton has been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, numerous N.E.A. and N.E.H fellowships, both major awards given for poetry translation in the United States, and a lifetime achievement award by The American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Review

“David Hinton is the best English-language translator of classical Chinese poetry we have, and have had for decades. A magician’s grace glows through all of the poems, a grace and ease uncommonly found,uncommonly masterful.”
- Citation from the Thornton Wilder Lifetime Achievement Award (American Academy of Arts and Letters)

“Tu Fu said ‘A poet's ideas are noble and simple.’ But Tu Fu does not seem so simple to us. His richly-layered work is well represented in these crisp translations. The background notes are invaluable. One of the world's finest poets is made available here.”
- Gary Snyder

“Tu Fu is the greatest non-epic, non-dramatic poet who has survived in any language.”
- Kenneth Rexroth

Edition details

• Publisher: New Directions
• Publication date: 2020
• ISBN 10: 081122838X
• ISBN 13: 9780811228381
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 288