| The Canglang shihua (Canglang's Remarks on Poetry) by Yan Yu (fl. 1200) of the Southern Song dynasty, is widely recognized as one of the finest works of Chinese poetry criticism. However, a complete annotated translation of Yan Yu's work is not available in English; current English journals and anthologies only contain fragments of Yan's Remarks on Poetry. This dissertation provides a complete translation of his work, supplemented by detailed annotations of classical Chinese words, textual allusions, literary traditions and figures, cultural concepts, legends, religious beliefs, philosophies, and political and social conditions, designed to give the modern reader access to this seminal work.;Yan Yu, as a literary theorist and poet, is remembered mostly for two things: first, as an archaist advocating a return to High-Tang poetry, which he admired because it possessed magnificent "qixiang" (atmosphere and imagery); second, his insightful analogy between the process of attaining enlightenment in Zen Buddhism and the writing of poetry. These two issues, along with some other topics raised by Yan Yu himself and by later critics, are explored from various perspectives in the Introduction. The intention is to achieve a multidimensional understanding of Yan Yu's poetic and world views, since Yan's aesthetic ideas still exert a far-reaching influence on critics and readers in China and beyond.;The Canglang shihua consists of five sections. Part One: Arguments on Poetry (Shibian)--the major thesis of Yan Yu's view of poetry is laid out here. Part Two: Forms of Poetry (Shiti)--contains a classification of poetic styles by time and person, and a list of various poetic genres. Part Three: Methods of Poetry (Shifa)--suggestions on how to write excellent poetry are offered. Part Four: Commentaries on Poetry (Shiping)--individual poets and poems are evaluated. Part Five: Proofs of Poetry (Shizheng)--textual discrepancies are collated, and the authorship and dates of poems are discussed.;Scholarship has traditionally focused on Parts One and Three due to the obvious importance of their contents. However, the much less-studied parts of the Canglang shihua can also contribute to an understanding of Chinese poetic traditions, since in Part Two Yan Yu provides a list of poetic styles and genres, valuable to the reader in surveying and becoming familiar with Chinese poetry, thus developing his "shi" (ability to discern). Then in Parts Four and Five where Yan Yu discusses poetry, the reader sees Yan Yu's sense of "shi" at work in his evaluation and collation of poems as well as in his judgment of the authenticity of attributed authorship. |
