Preface

THIS BOOK CONTAINS elements of polemics, autobiography, theory of literature, phenomenology of reading, theory of translation, hermeneutics, poetics, and practical criticism. However, it has a definite focus: the critical interpretation and evaluation of Chinese poetry for English-speaking readers. It is intended to raise questions rather than to solve them, to provoke discussion rather than to invoke dogma. I could have written a much longer book but have chosen to be as concise as possible, because long books on academic subjects are both boring and expensive. I have always believed that one who throws stones should not live in a glass house; whether the house I have just built is made of glass, only time can tell. Meanwhile, I fully expect stones to be thrown at me from all directions, but I make no promise to retaliate every shot.

All Chinese words and names are romanized according to the pinyin system, except for those that have long been naturalized, such as Confucius, Taoism, and Peking. It seems to me that to insist on writing “Beijing” instead of “Peking” is like insisting on writing “Firenze” instead of “Florence” and “München” instead of “Munich.” Also, if persons and institutions have their own preferred forms of romanization, these have not been changed. Thus, “Tsing Hua University,” “Fu Jen University” (as they were known in my time in Peking), and “Shuen-fu Lin,” rather than “Qinghua University,” “Furen University,” and “Lin Shunfu.” When quoting Chinese poems or lines of verse, I first give the original text, then the romanization accompanied by a word-for-word translation, and finally a more intelligible English version, which does not pretend to be English poetry. All other Chinese words, phrases, and names mentioned in the text are given in the List of Chinese Words and Names, arranged in alphabetical order according to the pinyin romanization, with the Wade-Giles romanization in brackets, and the Chinese characters. I hope this may help readers not familiar with the pinyin but familiar with the Wade-Giles system. Chinese characters that appear only in the notes or the bibliography are not included in the list.

Some of the material in the introduction and in chapter 1 has previously appeared in “Towards a Synthesis of Chinese and Western Theories of Literature,” Journal of Chinese Philosophy, Vol. 4 (1977); parts of chapter 3 have appeared in “Polarity of Aims and Methods: Naturalization or Barbarization?” Yearbook of Comparative and General Literature, No. 24 (1975) and in “Language—Literature—Translation: A Bifocal Approach in a Tetradic Framework,” in T. C. Lai, ed., The Art and Profession of Translation (Hong Kong, n.d.); chapter 6 is substantially reprinted from “Time, Space, and Self in Chinese Poetry,” Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews, Vol. I, No. 2 (1979). However, this book is not a mélange of previously published and hitherto unpublished articles, but an attempt to weave various strands of thought into a coherent pattern.

I wish to acknowledge with thanks a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship, which enabled me to write this book during my sabbatical year 1978-79, and a grant from the Center for East Asian Studies, Stanford University, to cover the cost of typing the manuscript.