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“Of all the translations, the highest achievement is Mr. Arthur Waley’s… A triumph at once of poetry and scholarship.” —The Observer (London)
One of the five Confucian classics, The Book of Songs (Shijing) is the oldest collection of poetry in world literature and the finest treasure of traditional songs left from antiquity. Where the other Confucian classics treat “outward things: deeds, moral precepts, the way the world works,” as Stephen Owen tells us in his foreword, The Book of Songs is “the classic of the human heart and the human mind.”
“Of all the translations, the highest achievement is Mr. Arthur Waley’s… A triumph at once of poetry and scholarship.” —The Observer (London)
Born in Turnbridge Wells, England, Arthur Waley is recognized as one of the foremost and most perceptive English interpreters of Far Eastern culture. He is known to student of Chinese and Japanese literature as much for his vast knowledge of the field as for his sensitive, lively and often humorous renderings into English of its most important works.
His translations and lengthy introductions are well annotated for the benefit of the serious student and take into account the historical and linguistic context of the originals.
His published works include The Book of Songs (revised by Joseph R. Allen), Monkey: Folk Novel of China by Wu Ch’eng-en, The Way and Its Power: A Study of the Tao Te Ching and Its Place in Chinese Thought, The No Plays of Japan, The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon, and An Introduction to the Study of Chinese Painting.