Selected Poems of Yeats

叶慈 / 杨牧Guangxi Normal University Press · ChinaDec 2021

Rating 4.3
Word count
43K words
Chapters
154
ISBN
9787549581696

Tags

Modern Poetry BilingualMaster TranslationLyric PoetryEnglish Poetry in ChinesePoetics IntroductionPoetry TranslationIrish Literature

Summary

"A poet who treated poetry as life" meets "the greatest English-language poet of the 20th century." Yeats and Yang Mu—great works in a great translation, nothing short of extraordinary. This volume, meticulously translated by the renowned Taiwanese poet Yang Mu, presents nearly eighty of Yeats's major poems from across his life, with the original texts alongside in a Chinese-English bilingual format, plus an introduction, notes, and other apparatus in a complete, well-structured edition.

Editor's review

Selected Poems of Yeats gathers the essence of Irish poet William Butler Yeats's poetry spanning more than half a century. Yeats was not only the winner of the 1923 Nobel Prize in Literature but also a central figure of the Irish Literary Revival. His work ranges from the early romantic, ethereal Celtic mysticism to the mid-period fervor of political and national engagement, and on to the condensed, profound philosophical reflection and pursuit of eternal art in his later years—a complete trajectory of a great poet's inner world. Published by Guangxi Normal University Press, this edition is a carefully considered translation that strives to reproduce the distinctive musicality and symbolic system of Yeats's poetry.

The editor believes that the power of Yeats's poetry lies in the interweaving of intense personal feeling with grand historical and mythological contexts. Whether the passionate love poems written for his lifelong beloved Maud Gonne, such as "When You Are Old"; or profound reflections on Irish national independence and the fate of civilization, such as "Easter, 1916"; or the late meditations on time, aging, and art, such as "Sailing to Byzantium"—all display the poet's extraordinary ability to refine personal experience into universal human emotion and wisdom. His poetic language moves from clear loveliness to a taut concision, and his imagery (the winding stair, the swan, Byzantium) is wholly his own, building a rich and profound symbolic world. Reading Yeats is not only to appreciate the beauty of poetry but to follow a sage's gaze in examining eternal questions of love, politics, art, and life and death. This carefully selected and translated edition is one of the reliable ways for Chinese readers to approach this master of modernist poetry.

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Reading tips

  1. Read in the order arranged in this book to trace the evolution of Yeats's poetic style and themes
  2. Focus on representative works such as "When You Are Old," "The Wild Swans at Coole," and "Sailing to Byzantium" to appreciate the poetics and thought of different periods
  3. Supplement reading with Yeats's biography (especially his romantic history and political activities) and Irish historical background to deepen understanding

About the publisher

Guangxi Normal University Press China · Founded in 1986

Guangxi Normal University Press is a publisher known for literature, foreign literature and history titles. Its 1,175 books in the database show a solid accumulation in classics and prose collections, including foreign literary works such as Les Fleurs du mal: Annotated Poems of Baudelaire, Snow Country, Dubliners and The Wild Palms, as well as modern prose compilations like The Complete Prose of Zhou Zuoren. History and philosophy also hold a notable share, with titles such as Running Dogs: Clerks and Runners in Qing County Yamen and The History and Thought of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom reflecting attention to Qing local administration and modern history. In art literature there is the 16-volume Ten Bamboo Studio Painting and Calligraphy Manual. Its author resources include foreign writers Charles Baudelaire and Yasunari Kawabata, translators and annotators Liu Nanqi and Zou Bo, and scholars such as Zhong Shuhe, Bradly W. Reed and You Chenjun. As public information is limited, this characterization is based only on the books in the database, which together present a profile balancing Chinese and foreign literary classics with academic works in the humanities and social sciences.

Contents

  1. 版权信息
  2. 导言
  3. The Priest of Pan
  4. 牧神的祭师
  5. 'Mong Meadows of Sweet Grain
  6. 在香谷阡陌
  7. The Dew Comes Dropping
  8. 露水点点滴落
  9. Wherever in the Wastes
  10. 每当身在荒漠
  11. The Indian to His Love
  12. 那印度人致所爱
  13. The Falling of the Leaves
  14. 叶落
  15. Ephemera
  16. 蜉蝣
  17. The Lake Isle of Innisfree
  18. 湖岛因尼斯夫莉
  19. When You Are Old
  20. 当你老了
  21. The White Birds
  22. 白鸟
  23. To Some I Have Talked with by the Fire
  24. 赠与我倾谈向火的人
  25. He Bids His Beloved Be at Peace
  26. 让爱平静将息
  27. The Valley of the Black Pig
  28. 黑豕谷
  29. He Tells of the Perfect Beauty
  30. 论完美
  31. In the Seven Woods
  32. 七重林中
  33. The Withering of the Boughs
  34. 树枯枝萎
  35. Adam's Curse
  36. 亚当其惩
  37. The Old Men Admiring Themselves in the Water
  38. 老人对水自怜
  39. No Second Troy
  40. 特洛不再
  41. The Coming of Wisdom with Time
  42. 睿智随时间
  43. All Things Can Tempt Me
  44. 什么事都教我分心
  45. September 1913
  46. 一九一三年九月
  47. Fallen Majesty
  48. 失落的尊荣
  49. The Cold Heaven
  50. 寒天
  51. The Magi
  52. 东方三贤士
  53. The Wild Swans at Coole
  54. 阔园野天鹅
  55. An Irish Airman Foresees His Death
  56. 一个爱尔兰飞行员预见死亡
  57. Solomon to Sheba
  58. 所罗门与希芭
  59. The Scholars
  60. 学者
  61. Lines Written in Dejection
  62. 忧郁作
  63. The Dawn
  64. 黎明
  65. The Fisherman
  66. 钓者
  67. On Being Asked for a War Poem
  68. 有人要我写一首有关战争的诗
  69. Ego Dominus Tuus
  70. 余尔等主
  71. Michael Robartes and the Dancer
  72. 麦柯·罗拔兹与舞者
  73. An Image from a Past Life
  74. 一来自前生的形象
  75. Easter, 1916
  76. 复活节·一九一六
  77. On a Political Prisoner
  78. 一名政治犯
  79. The Leaders of the Crowd
  80. 群众领袖
  81. The Second Coming
  82. 二度降临
  83. A Meditation in Time of War
  84. 战时冥想
  85. Sailing to Byzantium
  86. 航向拜占庭
  87. My House
  88. 吾宅
  89. The Stare's Nest by My Window
  90. 窗子边上的燕巢
  91. Nineteen Hundred and Nineteen
  92. 西元一千九百十九年
  93. Leda and the Swan
  94. 丽妲与天鹅
  95. On a Picture of a Black Centaur by Edmund Dulac
  96. 爱德芒·杜剌可画黑色人头马
  97. Among School Children
  98. 在学童当中
  99. Human Dignity
  100. 人性尊严
  101. His Wildness
  102. 离群
  103. A Dialogue of Self and Soul
  104. 自我与灵魂的对话
  105. Symbols
  106. 象征
  107. The Nineteenth Century and After
  108. 十九世纪以降
  109. Three Movements
  110. 三世运
  111. The Crazed Moon
  112. 疯月
  113. Coole and Ballylee, 1931
  114. 阔园与灞列力塔·一九三一
  115. Byzantium
  116. 拜占庭
  117. Gratitude to the Unknown Instructors
  118. 感念无名教师
  119. Lullaby
  120. 催眠曲
  121. After Long Silence
  122. 长久沉默之后
  123. Her Triumph
  124. 她的优势
  125. Chosen
  126. 选定
  127. Her Vision in the Wood
  128. 她神觉之象在林中
  129. Whence Had They Come?
  130. 乌何由来哉？
  131. Meru
  132. 灭忽
  133. Lapis Lazuli
  134. 青金石雕
  135. To Dorothy Wellesley
  136. 致桃乐西·卫俄斯里
  137. The Spur
  138. 刺激
  139. The Pilgrim
  140. 朝圣者
  141. The Statues
  142. 雕像
  143. News for the Delphic Oracle
  144. 消息为德尔菲预言而作
  145. Long-legged Fly
  146. 长脚蚊
  147. A Stick of Incense
  148. 一炷香
  149. High Talk
  150. 高谈
  151. Man and the Echo
  152. 人及其回声
  153. Politics
  154. 政治

FAQ

What are the features of this translation? This translation emphasizes conveying the rhythm of Yeats's poetry and the accuracy of its imagery; the translator seeks a balance between scholarly research and poetic transformation. The appendix may include notes or a translator's afterword to aid understanding of the poems' background and symbolic meaning.
Is Yeats's poetry difficult to understand? The early poetry is relatively lyrical and beautiful; the middle and later works, incorporating a large personal symbolic system, mythological metaphors, and historical references, may seem obscure at first. Reading with a guide or notes and rereading will gradually reveal their profound meaning.
Besides poetry, what else should one pay attention to in understanding Yeats? Yeats's plays and essays, as well as the Irish Literary Revival he helped lead, are complementary to his poetry. His lifelong interest in mysticism (such as spiritualism and Eastern philosophy) also profoundly influenced the symbolic world of his poetry.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

叶慈 Author

Ye Ci is represented in the Chinese book records by one title, Selected Poems of Ye Ci, commonly classified as modern poetry. Because public information is limited, no clear record has been found of the English name, nationality, or dates of birth and death, so the author's background cannot currently be confirmed. Judging from the available work, Ye Ci writes mainly poetry, with concise language and a strong sense of rhythm, linking everyday experience with inner feeling and showing a distinctly modern poetic character. The poems tend to focus on personal emotion and lived experience, and in form they attend to the choice of imagery and restraint in wording, leaving room for quiet reflection. Selected Poems of Ye Ci, the representative work currently available, offers readers a basic entry point into this poetry and suggests that, even with incomplete materials, one may still grasp the author's orientation and artistic pursuit from the texts themselves.

杨牧 Author

Yang Mu is an author about whom limited public information is available. Two works appear under this name: Selected Poems of Yeats and The Evolutionary Code of Genius, classified respectively as modern poetry and philosophical reading, which suggests that his writing and editorial work span both literature and thought. Selected Poems of Yeats points to the translation and selection of the Irish poet Yeats, placing the work within the translation and dissemination of poetry, while The Evolutionary Code of Genius carries a speculative philosophical tone, exploring ideas of genius and evolution. Judging only from these two titles in the database, Yang Mu's interests center on introducing poetic texts and probing philosophical questions, combining literary appreciation with intellectual inquiry. Because reliable details about his life, nationality, and education are lacking, a full account of his career and style cannot be given; readers may turn to these two works to learn about his areas of concern and his manner of writing.