The Chinese celebrate Tang poetry as a pinnacle of their culture
Can poetry come alive to those who must read it in translation?
EZRA POUND, an American modernist, described poetry as “news that stays news”. The versions of classical Chinese poetry he published in “Cathay” in 1915 were a declaration that, in a world of Model ts and machine guns, 1,200-year-old verse still mattered.
This article appeared in the Christmas Specials section of the print edition under the headline “Through a crystal curtain”
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