ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This work was published with a Pacific Cultural Foundation subsidy, and we wish to acknowledge with gratitude this publication subsidy from the Pacific Cultural Foundation of Taiwan. Additionally, we gratefully acknowledge the several grants made to us at various stages of the editing and production process by both the Office of Research and Graduate Development and the International Programs Office of Indiana University.

We also thank Mr. Sung Lung-fei, editor-in-chief, The National Palace Museum Monthly of Chinese Art of Taiwan, for his technical help, especially in the preparation of the Chinese-language edition, Tai-lin chi. We also would like to thank Dr. Hsiao Ch’ing-sung, University of Arizona Library, for supplying us with the Chinese calligraphy found on the title page of the Chinese edition.

We wish to thank three of our friends—Professors Joseph S. M. Lau, University of Wisconsin; Jing-shen Tao, University of Arizona; Hung-i Wu, National Taiwan University—for reading through the introduction to the Chinese edition and suggesting a number of stylistic improvements on the translation.

We are also grateful to Professor Chu-tsing Li, University of Kansas, and to Dr. Julia K. Murray, The Art Museum, Princeton University, for their assistance in identifying the paintings of Cheng Hsieh and Yün Shou-p’ing used in this volume; and to the curatorial staffs of the National Palace Museum of Taiwan, The Art Museum of Princeton University, and the Shanghai Museum in the People’s Republic of China for their courtesy and their kind permission to reproduce from their respective collections the rare calligraphy by some of the Ch’ing poets included in our anthology.

We also are grateful to the curatorial staffs of Shanghai Museum in the People’s Republic of China and of the National Palace Museum of Taiwan for their permission to reproduce illustrations used on the jacket and in the book, and to our friends in the United States for the use of similar material from their private collections. Acknowledgements are also gratefully made to Random House, Inc. for permission to reprint three poems by Emperor K’ang-hsi from Professor Jonathan Spence’s Emperor of China: Self-Portrait of K’ang-hsi, copyright © 1974 by Jonathan D. Spence; and to Doubleday Inc. for permission to reproduce two lyrics by Wang Kuo-wei in Ching-i Tu׳s translation and an excerpt from a poem by Li Po in Joseph J. Lee’s translation, all from Sunflower Splendor: Three Thousand Years of Chinese Poetry, copyright © 1975 by Wu-chi Liu and Irving Lo.

For the inception and the completion of this project, we are also indebted to many colleagues in the field and former students for their encouragement and support. At an early stage, Professor Frederick W. Mote of Princeton University and the late Professor James J. Y. Liu of Stanford University generously provided helpful advice in reading over our list of individual poets represented in this volume. More recently, we have benefited from a careful reading of our manuscript by Professor Liu and by Professor Hans Frankel of Yale, both of whom have made invaluable suggestions for improvement and saved us from many errors; from an earlier discussion of the coverage with Professor Ch’ien Chung-lien of Kiangsu Normal University, Soochow, China; and from stylistic improvements of the Chinese version of the Introduction by Professor Joseph S. M. Lau of the University of Wisconsin. We also would like to acknowledge the help of two project assistants, Renée McCurdy and John D. Coleman, for their assistance in the preparation of the manuscript over a long period of time.

We owe the largest debt to our contributors, without whom this anthology would not have been possible. In their patience and understanding, and in the scholarly concern they have shown in their translations and short critical essays, all entered into the spirit of a collaborative effort with enthusiasm and graciousness. At the final editing stage, some of our collaborators very kindly offered helpful suggestions for refining translations other than their own, sometimes giving rise to fruitful exchanges, and in such instances, it was our privilege to serve as a conduit of advice and consultation. The spirit of cooperation extended to all aspects of the project, and this fact encourages us to believe that this anthology may be more of a beginning than an end to shared goals and interests. A very large share of any credit accruing from this undertaking must therefore go to all of those likeminded individuals who have contributed to its completion, all of whom have a deep interest in Ch’ing dynasty literary studies and are committed to good translation of Chinese poetry. Responsibility for any shortcomings or deficiencies in the final work are, of course, our own.

Finally, we wish to thank John Gallman, director of Indiana University Press, for his unfailing good humor and courtesy at all times and his staunch support of the project from its inception, and his editorial staff for their careful assistance in the production of this book.

IRVING YUCHENG LO

WILLIAM SCHULTZ