Collected Songs of Cold Mountain

Language Notes
Text: English, Chinese (translation)


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Cold Mountain, or Han Shan, the possibly mythical Taoist Chinese recluse of the eighth or ninth century, left a legacy of just over 300 poems, or "songs," as identified by translator Red Pine, the pen name for the American Bill Porter, a writer and translator who has lived in Taiwan and China for nearly three decades. Red Pine's other works include Road to Heaven: Encounters with Chinese Hermits, which weaves some of Cold Mountain's poems into a journey to the mountains of China known for centuries to have provided refuge for Zen practitioners and Taoist adepts like Cold Mountain himself. Accompanying Red Pine's translations of the mostly five-syllable, eight-line verses are the text of each poem in Chinese as well as glosses on terms and personages, many based on a classical exegesis of Cold Mountain's poems. The translator's preface describes his rendition of the life of Cold Mountain, offering an excellent historical and philosophical context for the simple yet profound poems attributed to the poet. This translation adds to the corpus of Han Shan's poems in Western languages, including those by Gary Snyder and Burton Watson. Recommended for East Asian collections in academic and larger public libraries.--D.E. Perushek, Northwestern Univ. Lib., Evanston, IL Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.


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