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()(Slêñ//@This early translation of one of JapanLs most famous anthologies of poetry has preserved its charm for almost seventy years, and it is a distinct pleasure for the publisher to bring it back into print with its original delightful woodcut illustrations. William N. Porter, in translating the work, clearly performed a labor of love, and the fact that several other translations of it have appeared in later years in no way diminishes the value of his accomplishment.//@LThe Hyakunin Isshu [or LIsshiuL, as Mr. Porter transliterates the word]L dates from the thirteenth century and is by far the most popular of classical poetry anthologies among the Japanese. Its title literally means Lone hundred poems by one hundred poetsL, and the one hundred poets that it presents are universally known among their countrymen, even seven centuries later. The collection, as Mr. Porter points out in his introduction, consists almost entirely of love poems and picture poems intended to bring some well-known scene to mind, and, as he continues, it is astonishing Lwhat perfect little thumbnail sketches are compressed within thirty-one syllables.L//@Mr. PorterLs translations of the poems are accompanied by brief but excellently informative background notes, all of them pleasant to read and none of them written in boresomely scholarly fashion. In fact, his version of this celebrated collection of Japanese poetry is ideally suited to readers who are making their first acquaintance with the work and who appreciate writing of a truly engaging quality.//@William N. Porter translated many works from the Japanese between 1900 and 1914. He is best known for his challenging but artful translation of LA Hundred Verses from Old Japan : Being a Translation of theLHyakunin-issiu (1909)L. Another of his well-known translations is LThe Tosa DiaryL, the oldest extant Japanese work of literature, which was written in 935 by Ki no Tsurayuki.) |
BASE de DATOS, Biblioteca del Centro Cultural de la Embajada de Japon
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