![Goddesses, Ghosts, and Demons: The Collected Poems of Li He (Li Chang-Ji, 790-816)]( "Goddesses, Ghosts, and Demons: The Collected Poems of Li He (Li Chang-Ji, 790-816)")
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Total reviews: 2
Average rating: 5.0 of 5
Exploring in depth a unique and wholly unforgettable figure. 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.
J. D. Frodsham is Reader in Chinese at the Australian National University, and this is a scholarly edition with an extremely interesting and informative Introduction, and with extensively annotated translations of 242 of Li He's [Li Ho's] poems. The book also includes a Finding List, a Bibliography (with sinographs) of the 'Major Extant Chinese and Japanese Editions,' an additional Bibliography of 'Sources' and 'Books and Articles on Li He,' and is rounded out with a very full and detailed Index.Frodsham tells us that Li He, who died when he was twenty-six after failing the Imperial examinations which would have qualified him for an official appointment in China's ruling bureaucracy, "was a man ravaged by sickness and disappointment. He seems to have suffered a severe illness - perhaps a nervous breakdown - consequent upon his failure to attain his degree" (p.xxii).
His poems are highly allusive - hence the need for extensive annotations - and have a grim and haunted quality. Here is the central stanza of his 'Song of the Old Jade-hunter' (with my obliques added to indicate line breaks) - a powerfully moving poem about the men who lived in hunger and extreme poverty, and who risked their lives, hanging from cliffs over raging torrents, to collect the precious substance that would later be carved into expensive art objects for the delectation of Chinese connoisseurs:
"On rainy nights, on the ridge of a hill, / He sups on hazel nuts, / Like the blood that wells from the cuckoo's maw / Are the old man's tears. / The waters of Indigo river are gorged / With human lives; / After a thousand years the dead / Still loathe these torrents" (p.79).
Frodsham's translations, though not quite in the class of a Burton Watson or A. C. Graham, read on the whole rather well, and do serve to suggest something of the power and feeling of the originals. But to be fully appreciated they need to be read along with his annotations.
Li He offers us a vision of ancient China, and of life, that is very different to the gentler and more restrained one we are accustomed to, and one that is possibly truer. His poems have a very special and unforgettable atmosphere. And so far as I know, Frodsham's is the only full-length book in English devoted to his work. As such it becomes something to be very grateful for, and a book that should be read by anyone who is interested in extending their understanding of Chinese poetry by exploring in depth a unique and wholly unforgettable figure.
