Song of Everlasting Sorrow (English-Chinese Edition)

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As a state of poetry, China has a treasury of story-telling or narrative poetry as one of its major poetic forms. We may find that some poems in the Book of Songs edited in the 5th century BC, albeit lyrical for the most part, already have some narrative features. The narrative and dramatic form in ancient Chinese poetry developed, if not prospered, in the Eastern Han Dynasty , highlighted by The Peafowls to the Southeast Fly, a Yuefu folksong loved by many both then and now, which marked the maturity of the Chinese narrative poetry. This folksong and the Song of Mulan, another Yuefu folksong appearing in the Northern Dynasties , have been referred to as “twin stars� in the history of Chinese poetry. Yuefu, by definition, is a “music bureau� which provided music and songs for state rituals and imperial entertainments, and the same term came to be applied to the lyrics of the songs written in such style, which, with variations in its later developments, takes on the essential feature of being “directed to practical events.� In the Tang Dynasty , the poet Bai Juyi essayed to versify both events and emotions in what he entitled the “New Yuefu� and maximized the expressiveness of the Chinese narrative poetry. The Song of Everlasting Sorrow and The Pi-pa Player contained in this series are his masterpieces, which perfectly blend the narrative and lyrical features, and, along with the earlier pieces, The Peafowls to the Southeast Fly and the Song of Mulan, milestone the ancient Chinese narrative poetry.It is generally acknowledged that Chinese poetry and Chinese paintings are interrelated or even interactive in terms of imagery. Different from the Chinese lyric poetry, the Chinese narrative poetry often relates to the social customs and habits, historical backgrounds and various cultural elements such as fashions, transport vehicles, festive activities, when plots are developed and characters depicted in the poems. These elements may have helped to inspire the artists to express their aesthetic experience through brush and ink and, indeed, quite some illustrations have over time been produced based on the abovementioned four poems. Shanghai People’s Fine Arts Publishing House, a professional fine art publisher, has carefully selected the illustrations by four of the best contemporary illustrators in China who attempt to interpret the poems in their ways, and has compiled this Chinese-English Illustrated Series of Ancient Chinese Classical Narrative Poems to assist overseas readers to better appreciate the beauty of Chinese poetry and Chinese paintings.As this series is targeted at the general readership both at home and abroad, the compiler has considered the various needs of the readers, and facilitated their study of the Chinese language and culture by marking Chinese pinyin to the original texts, accompanied by some annotations on points of difficulties. A scholar of profound knowledge in the histories of Chinese literature and Chinese fine arts has been invited to make a simple and useful introduction to the four poems and their illustrations from an aesthetic viewpoint and, by doing so, provide an easy access to the artistic atmosphere of Chinese poetry and Chinese paintings. In addition, some notes of cultural value and associated pictures have been added as footnotes to help the readers understand how people lived and what the social customs looked like in the ancient China, and more about the Chinese culture involved in ancient Chinese poetry and paintings from multiple levels and perspectives.
This is an English-Chinese bilingual book.