Wang Wei has traditionally been considered one of the greatest of Tang dynasty poets, together with Li Bo and Du Fu. This is the first complete translation into English of all of his poems, and also the first substantial translation of a selection of his prose writings. For the first time, readers encountering his work in English translation will get a comprehensive understanding of Wang Wei‘s range as a poet and prose writer. In spite of the importance of Wang Wei's poetry in the history of Chinese literature, no one has attempted a complete translation of all of his surviving poems; moreover, even though he was known for his skill in composing prose pieces in the recognized genres of his day (especially as a writer of commissioned compositions), very little of his prose has been translated. This translation will enable students with limited or no knowledge of Chinese to get a full sense of Wang Wei's compositional range. Moreover, since Wang Wei was known for being a devout Buddhist, having the complete poetry available in reliable translation as well as all of the prose that is connected to the Buddhist faith will be useful to students of Chinese religion.

Volume 1 edited by Christopher M.B. Nugent.

This book offers a guided introduction to Chinese nonfictional prose and its literary and cultural significance. It features more than one hundred major texts from antiquity through the Qing dynasty that exemplify major genres, styles, and forms of traditional Chinese prose. For each work, the book presents an English translation, the Chinese original, and accessible critical commentary by leading scholars. How to Read Chinese Prose teaches readers to appreciate the literary merits, stylistic devices, rhetorical choices, and argumentative techniques of a wide range of nonfictional writing. It emphasizes the interconnections among individual texts and across eras, helping readers understand the development of the literary tradition and what makes particular texts formative or distinctive within it. Organized by dynastic period and genre, the book identifies and examines four broad categories of prose—narrative, expository, descriptive, and communicative. How to Read Chinese Prose is suitable for a range of courses in Chinese literature, history, religion, and philosophy, as well as for scholars and interested readers seeking to deepen their knowledge of the Chinese prose tradition. A companion book, How to Read Chinese Prose in Chinese, is designed for Chinese-language learners and features many of the same texts.

Wang Wei has traditionally been considered one of the greatest of Tang dynasty poets, together with Li Bo and Du Fu. This is the first complete translation into English of all of his poems, and also the first substantial translation of a selection of his prose writings. For the first time, readers encountering his work in English translation will get a comprehensive understanding of Wang Wei‘s range as a poet and prose writer. In spite of the importance of Wang Wei's poetry in the history of Chinese literature, no one has attempted a complete translation of all of his surviving poems; moreover, even though he was known for his skill in composing prose pieces in the recognized genres of his day (especially as a writer of commissioned compositions), very little of his prose has been translated. This translation will enable students with limited or no knowledge of Chinese to get a full sense of Wang Wei's compositional range. Moreover, since Wang Wei was known for being a devout Buddhist, having the complete poetry available in reliable translation as well as all of the prose that is connected to the Buddhist faith will be useful to students of Chinese religion.

At last here is the long-awaited, first Western-language reference guide focusing exclusively on Chinese literature from ca. 700 B.C.E. to the early seventh century C.E. Alphabetically organized, it contains no less than 1095 entries on major and minor writers, literary forms and "schools," and important Chinese literary terms. In addition to providing authoritative information about each subject, the compilers have taken meticulous care to include detailed, up-to-date bibliographies and source information. The reader will find it a treasure-trove of historical accounts, especially when browsing through the biographies of authors. Indispensable for scholars and students of pre-modern Chinese literature, history, and thought. Part Two contains S to Xi.

The second of live volumes planned to give a systematic account of Japanese literature from its beginnings to the death of the modern novelist Mishima, this book establishes the character of the literature of the early Middle Ages, from the ninth to the mid-twelfth century. Originally published in 1986. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

"A vertitable feast of concise, useful, reliable, and up-to-dateinformation (all prepared by top scholars in the field), Nienhauser's now two-volumetitle stands alone as THE standard reference work for the study of traditionalChinese literature. Nothing like it has ever been published." --Choice The second volume to The Indiana Companion to TraditionalChinese Literature is both a supplement and an update to the original volume. VolumeII includes over 60 new entries on famous writers, works, and genres of traditionalChinese literature, followed by an extensive bibliographic update (1985-1997) ofeditions, translations, and studies (primarily in English, Chinese, Japanese, French, and German) for the 500+ entries of Volume I.

Chronicles the period between the 4th and 12th centuries, when religion became the justification for political and military action, a time that included the development of Islam, the crowning of Charlemagne, and the rise of the T'ang Dynasty.

Questions of the nature of understanding and interpretation—hermeneutics—are fundamental in human life, though historically Westerners have tended to consider these questions within a purely Western context. In this comparative study, Zhang Longxi investigates the metaphorical nature of poetic language, highlighting the central figures of reality and meaning in both Eastern and Western thought: the Tao and the Logos. The author develops a powerful cross-cultural and interdisciplinary hermeneutic analysis that relates individual works of literature not only to their respective cultures, but to a combined worldview where East meets West. Zhang's book brings together philosophy and literature, theory and practical criticism, the Western and the non-Western in defining common ground on which East and West may come to a mutual understanding. He provides commentary on the rich traditions of poetry and poetics in ancient China; equally illuminating are Zhang's astute analyses of Western poets such as Rilke, Shakespeare, and Mallarmé and his critical engagement with the work of Foucault, Derrida, and de Man, among others. Wide-ranging and learned, this definitive work in East-West comparative poetics and the hermeneutic tradition will be of interest to specialists in comparative literature, philosophy, literary theory, poetry and poetics, and Chinese literature and history.