Timeless Lyrics

Musicality has always been an essential element of poetry. In particular, there is a Chinese poetic genre that was specifically invented for singing. It originated during the Tang (唐) Dynasty (618-907) and peaked during the Song (宋) Dynasty (960-1279). Every poem of this genre was written to match the melody of a song. Although those melodies have been unfortunately lost in time, many of the songs' lyrics remain. They are still widely popular in the Chinese-speaking world for their literary beauty, which makes them deserve getting translated into English to receive even more readership.

This book comprises rhymed English translations of Chinese lyric poems, arranged in two parts. Part I is a collection of 30 famous lyric poems by ten distinguished lyricists, three from each of them. Part II consists of 24 lyric poems with seasonal themes, each depicting one of the 24 microseasons defined by ancient Chinese astronomers. The 24 lyric poems of Part II were selected for their vivid depictions of seasonal phenomena, regardless of who wrote them. Interestingly, however, most of the 24 were written by the ten literary masters featured in Part I! This coincidence simply proves the ten poets' outstanding mastery. The ten of them were chosen for Part I partially thanks to a renowned Chinese literary critic named Wang Guowei (王國維, 1877-1927), who highly praises most of them in his book, A Humanistic View on Lyric Poetry (人間詞話). Excerpts from that book are in Appendix I, translated into English paragraph by paragraph. Appendix II presents one of the literary critic's best lyric poems, making the total of the lyric poems in this book 55.

Through this brilliant book, the English-speaking reader will see how literature transcends time, space, and cultural differences. What inspired sentimental lyricists in China centuries ago can still touch today's souls worldwide. Why not let these long-lasting lyrics make your soul sing?