xxii a not e on How t o us e tH is an tHolo gy
posed. Some pronunciations are lost in modern Chinese and are preserved only
in southern dialects, such as Cantonese. Reading ancient and medieval poems in
those dialects restores some of the lost aural nuances.
The sound recording (available online at http://www.cup.columbia.edu/static/
cai-sound-files) adds an invaluable dimension to the reading of the poems, turning
the silent characters into living speech. We urge readers to listen to the recording
repeatedly in order to get a good sense of Chinese metrics. In Chinese poetry, the
prescribed rhythm of sounds does not merely yield musical pleasure and “an echo
to the sense,” as Alexander Pope said about English poetry, but it is the sense itself
because it dictates how words are arranged to generate meaning.
The word-for-word translations, provided for all the tonally regulated poems,
afford a direct look at the noninflectional nature of Chinese and demonstrate how
the absence of inflectional tags changes the entire dynamic of reading. Instead of
being told the poet’s feelings and thoughts, we are often expected to experience
them ourselves while creatively engaging words and images in a dynamic interplay.
This is particularly true of the highly condensed and allusive works produced by
the literati poets. For learners of Chinese, the word-for-word translations provide
a handy collection of glosses that should facilitate their learning of characters.
A number of other features of this anthology are crucial to a full comprehen-
sion of Chinese poetry. To begin with, each of the 143 poems is accompanied by
a detailed commentary, allowing readers to gain a deep appreciation of the intri-
cate interplay of word, image, and sound in Chinese. In analyzing the 143 poems,
we have applied various modern methods of close reading and have drawn from
contemporary critical theories dealing with oral performance, gender, power,
and aesthetics. In addition, this anthology offers two systems of cross-reference.
Names and terms in boldface type alert readers to relevant entries in the glossary-
index, which contains additional information and references to related subjects
of interest. The thematic table of contents offers an equally extensive system of
cross-references at a broader level. It surveys the intellectual and cultural milieu
of the poems as well as the development of themes, prosody, diction, syntax, and
structure in Chinese poetry. By means of these aids, we hope to provide the kind
of anthology thus far available to only Chinese readers, one that will help raise the
knowledge and appreciation of Chinese poetry among English-language audiences
to a new level.
Z. C.