Li Shangyin

by Li Shangyin, Chloe Garcia Roberts (Translator), A.C. Graham (Translator)

Li Shangyin is one of the foremost poets of the late Tang, but until now he has rarely been translated into English, perhaps because the esotericism and sensuality of his work set him apart from the austere masters of the Chinese literary canon. Li favored allusiveness over directness, and his poems unfurl through mysterious images before coalescing into an emotional whole. Combining hedonistic aestheticism with stark fatalism, Li’s poetry is an intoxicating mixture of pleasure and grief, desire and loss, everywhere imbued with a singular nostalgia for the present moment.

This pioneering, bilingual edition presents Chloe Garcia Roberts’s translations of a wide selection of Li’s verse in the company of other versions by the prominent sinologist A. C. Graham and the scholar-poet Lucas Klein.

Genres: Poetry, China, Chinese Literature, Asian Literature

160 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2018

About the author

Li Shangyin (Chinese: 李商隱, c. 813–858) was a Chinese poet and politician of the late Tang dynasty, known for his evocative and highly allusive poetry. His works, often rich in imagery and emotion, frequently explore themes of love, longing, and political disillusionment. He is particularly famous for his untitled poems (無題, wútí), which have inspired centuries of interpretation and debate. Despite his literary brilliance, Li’s political career was marked by struggles, as he never attained high office, possibly due to factional conflicts and his association with political opponents of the powerful eunuch class. His poetry, filled with subtle references to history, philosophy, and folklore, is regarded as some of the most enigmatic and refined of the Tang period. Today, Li Shangyin remains one of China's most celebrated classical poets, with many of his works translated into multiple languages.

Reviews

[Markus · Rating 5 out of 5]

Li Shangyin
Poetry translated from Chinese by Chloe Garcia Roberts (@ 2018)


Li Shangyin (c.813-858) regarded as the most preeminent love poet of the classical language.

His work is remarkable for its sensuality, for its baroque use of imagery and symbolism and for the mysteriousness of its references and allusions.

For the European reader that I am these mysteries are largely impenetrable and obscure.
It would need Chinese culture to understand it better. I pity and admire the translators.

A quote will give you an apercu:

“Rush, rustling of the East Wind,
A fine rain arrives,
Beyond the Lotus Pool
Is a delicate thunder.

Golden Toad bites the lock,
Burning perfume enters,
Jade Tiger weighs the cord,
Above the well, circling.

Young Secretary Han:
Beheld through curtains by Lady Jia, briefly.
Talented King Wei:
Bequeathed Princess Fu’s pillow, only afterward.

Spring Heart
Refrain from competing with flowers in effusion:
One measure of longing,
One measure of ash.”

I found this little poem quite representative of all there is in this poets work:
Lovely landscapes, spring settings,
Mysterious allusions,
Lovers crosswise invisible links and sufferings,
Passion, commitment, and conflict,
Philosophy for young lovers.

The use of allusion is the most subtle, providing unmentioned links, slant glimpses of historical events, sometimes direct paintings of a scene before his eyes in which the reader might sense some elusive parallel to ancient poetry.

A book for lovers of the most delicate poetry of Ancient China.

[J · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the front chamber: rain.
The grief curtain: unrolled.
From the rear hall, the fragrant trees
Look dark, dark.
The landscape of Stone City
Resembles the hereafter of Yellow Springs.
Useless for a young man on a midnight journey
To carry a thornwood bow.
Summoning the wind from heaven's great gates,
A flimsy silk fan.
Waves and whirlpools spin
On sheer curtains, emerald screens.
Has the winged ghost of Shu, so still, so solitary
Found its mate?
For several nights, noxious blossoms
Opened on the Kapok tree.
The Cinnamon Palace spills reflections,
Its moonlight difficult to hold.
The beauteous fragrance of the orchid,
Breached by delicate words.
Oh, that the Silver River
Ran right through my chest!



Roses
Weep a secret pale.


*

[Hagar · Rating 5 out of 5]

THIS GOES HARD

[Alana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dude you should’ve been at the club last night it was absolutely insane. The DJ dropped late Tang dynasty poetry, full-on Li Shangyin deep cuts. Everyone was silently weeping into their tendril sleeves, totally transfixed by the imagist and ambiguous longing. At one point, someone recited an obscure couplet so heartbreaking we all just collapsed into contemplative silence. By the end of the night, we all got out our brocade zithers, lighting incense in the middle of the dance floor, leaving offerings to forgotten courtesans and celestial metaphors. It was like we were all suspended in that ineffable space between the moon and memory feeling the centuries melt away in our shared ineffable sorrows. One girl turned out to be made of purple jade and vanished in a puff of smoke, it was wild. Totally transcendent.

[غبار · Rating 3 out of 5]

being quite the li shangyin devotee, i can't evaluate these translations impartially, so i must say they are valiant – if inevitably inadequate – attempts. roberts' introduction, though lucid, is misleading to an extent, in highlighting her goal to foreground the "expansive, tactile, and shimmering beauty of the image over specificity and clarification of meaning and narrative", because (to my mind at least?) it veils the very active interpretive decision involved even in merely juxtaposing images, rather than venturing a syntax that divines their relation to one another (e.g. 不知身世自悠悠 is rendered as "Unaware, the body, the world, / Unbound themselves" which seems frankly clunky to me). another instance of a puzzling interpretation: 前閣雨簾愁不卷 becomes "In the front chamber: rain. / The grief curtain: unrolled". where did the 'grief curtain' come from? i suppose this works as a primer to the pearlescence of li's poetry, & it's good that there are different translators' versions of quite a few of the pieces!

[Fin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Idk what you're saying but it slaps

[Sem · Rating 4 out of 5]

One has to admire the bravery of a translator who includes translations - often of the same poems - by Lucas Klein and A.C. Graham in the appendices. I can't fault the accuracy of her translations but I prefer Klein's and Graham's. Even though I have a preferred translation style and favourite translators, I read all the translations I can find. This one is certainly worth multiple readings.

[Samuel Parkinson · Rating 3 out of 5]

While a number of these poems are enjoyable, and Garcia Roberts is to be commended for giving us English versions, this is a disappointing book.
Nearly all Chinese poetry is hard to understand without notes, since it loses so much wordplay and ambiguity in translation, as well as the many literary references it usually contains.
Li Shangyin, who is apparently near incomprehensible in Chinese at times, certainly needs that. So the paltry notes here are very disappointing.
While I have read enough other Chinese literature to get a lot of extra references, I have to say that many of the poems here remained basically incomprehensible to me: they seemed like faux-profound arrangements of words with no actual meaning. What does 'the golden toad bites the lock' mean? Or 'the butcherbird faces the moonboy'?
The inclusion of some of AC Graham's translations just reminds one of how much better it is to have notes on the page with the poem...
That said, some of the more personal poems are touching. If you are happy with the level of incomprehensibility and able to enjoy the steam of words, then it's not a bad little book.

[Sreena · Rating 4 out of 5]

"There are no roads that lead from here to paradise;
green bird, devote yourself to seeing for me."

It is so soothing to hear the Chinese poems written by Li Shangyin. I usually enjoy them more in the original Chinese than in translated versions. Here is one of my favorites:

遠書歸夢两悠悠
只有空牀敵素秋
階下青苔與紅樹
雨中寥落月中愁

"Distant letters, dreams of returning:
Both are few and far away.
All I have: an empty bed
Set against a pale autumn.
Down the steps:
Green moss, red trees.
Inside the rain: sinking emptiness.
Inside the moon: anguish."

A poem that expresses the feelings of loneliness and longing.

Li Shangyin was a prominent poet of the late Tang Dynasty.

While chronologically closer to Du Fu than Li Bai, I felt that Li Shangyin's style and themes differ significantly from both these legendary poets. Li Bai's themes tend to be simpler, focusing on joy, freedom, and escape, while Li Shangyin's focus on allusion and historical references. Du Fu's style is more realistic, while Li Shangyin prefers symbolism. One needs to have some good knowledge of Chinese history and cultural background to truly appreciate the poems of Li Shangyin.

[Diana Arterian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Garcia Roberts' translations bring work into English from the Tang Dynasty, buzzing and fizzing:

At the start of the dream a dragon palace appeared—
Treasures aflame, burning.
Rosy glowing clouds, brilliant, beauteous,
Filled the bright sky.

Whirling drunk, I leaned agains a tree

Now more than ever I crave literature that connects me to the ancient world. Through Garcia Roberts' translation, Li Shangyin's poetry (on grief, nature, loneliness) feels as fresh and alive as anything from today. Garcia Roberts' inclusion of other translations of the same poems within this single volume illustrates her remarkable generosity and willingness to show the complexities of translation and the innumerable ways one might bring a poem into another language. (Though hers seem to sit in the opaque yet profound beauty of the original.)

[Wyndford · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this book because it is bilingual and provides the original Chinese characters though they are a bit small for my eyes. Li Shangyin is one of my favourite poets, he conjures up moods and scenes with vividness and beauty. It is a testament to his greatness that he can be appreciated even in translation, though some poems work better than others.
The notes at the back are helpful in understanding the poems and more notes would have been better such as A. C. Graham and James Liu provided with their translations.

[Peter · Rating 3 out of 5]

I dislike the translator’s decision not to provide context to these poems. I found the lucas klein and ac graham translations better, though I respect what she sought to accomplish this project at all and am grateful for a greater understanding of the ancient masters

[Steven Severance · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book includes the poems in Chinese characters as well as the English translations. YAY!

I would think with fantasy fiction being so popular that Li's poetry might see a revival too.

So often we are in a dark medieval wood with evil and magic strewn all about.

[H Rollins · Rating 5 out of 5]

“One measure of longing, one measure of ashes” haunts me.

[Liam Hines · Rating 5 out of 5]

Let a single verse speak for itself:

"If I could force spring
Into sentience
It would only send forth
A single fragrant branch."

I don't know if it's the translator or the translated, but this is by far one of the greatest translations of Chinese poetry this century so far. One can only hope Roberts keeps gifting us translations of Chinese poetry for many, many more years. Including Chinese characters should be standard practice for translations, she thankfully does. It looks beautiful but also allows for immediate verification (anyone with the pleco app and $10 to blow on the classic/medieval Chinese dictionary can double check the work with some practice)