How to Read Chinese Poetry in Context is an introduction to the golden age of Chinese poetry, spanning the earliest times through the Tang dynasty (618-907). It aims to break down barriers-between language and culture, poetry and history-that have stood in the way of teaching and learning Chinese poetry. Not only a primer in early Chinese poetry, the volume demonstrates the unique and central role of poetry in the making of Chinese culture.

Each chapter focuses on a specific theme to show the interplay between poetry and the world. Readers discover the key role that poetry played in Chinese diplomacy, court politics, empire building, and institutionalized learning; as well as how poems shed light on gender and women's status, war and knight-errantry, Daoist and Buddhist traditions, and more. The chapters also show how people of different social classes used poetry as a means of gaining entry into officialdom, creating self-identity, fostering friendship, and airing grievances. The volume includes historical vignettes and anecdotes that contextualize individual poems, investigating how some featured texts subvert and challenge the grand narratives of Chinese history. Presenting poems in Chinese along with English translations and commentary, How to Read Chinese Poetry in Context unites teaching poetry with the social circumstances surrounding its creation, making it a pioneering and versatile text for the study of Chinese language, literature, history, and culture.

About the Author
Zong-qi Cai is professor of Chinese and comparative literature at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and chair professor of Chinese literature at Lingnan University of Hong Kong. His books on Chinese poetry include How to Read Chinese Poetry: A Guided Anthology (2007) and How to Read Chinese Poetry Workbook (2012), both from Columbia University Press, as well as The Matrix of Lyric Transformation: Poetic Modes and Self-Presentation in Early Chinese Pentasyllabic Poetry (1996).

Reviews
Devoted exclusively to the rich, fantastical, labyrinthine matrix of poetry-making in ancient China. . . . [How to Read Chinese Poetry in Context] is both a gem of fresh scholarship and a compendium of luminous insights. . . . This book - in fact, the entire series - will be a game changer. -- Yunte Huang * Los Angeles Review of Books, China Channel *
Zong-qi Cai is one of the finest scholars of Chinese poetry writing today. -- Jonathan Chaves, The George Washington University
Truly a landmark publication in the field of Chinese literary scholarship. -- Shuen-fu Lin, University of Michigan
In this magnificent volume on Chinese poetry, nineteen scholars demonstrate the importance of cultural reading. From questions of authorship to ideology, from the poetry of wars, heroes, women, and knights-errant to that of Daoism and Buddhism, this book offers a surprising and enlightening rereading of Chinese poetry and its context. -- Kang-i Sun Chang, Yale University
A splendid achievement! Intellectually rigorous and reader-friendly at once, this collection of essays lets both novice and specialist readers experience the beauty and poignancy of classical Chinese poetry one well-chosen topic at a time. -- Patricia Sieber, Ohio State University
This volume joins others in editor Zong-qi Cai's How to Read Chinese literature series as an important pedagogic and scholarly resource. Leading authorities set seminal poetic texts, across genres and periods, in their larger historical literary and intellectual contexts. A great contribution to a broader understanding of Chinese poetry. -- Ronald Egan, Stanford University
The translations are of high caliber, carefully done and polished. The book is user friendly. * China Review International *



Book Information
ISBN 9780231185370
Author Zong-qi Cai
Format Paperback
Page Count 328
Imprint Columbia University Press
Publisher Columbia University Press