The rediscovery of Greek and Roman literature kickstarted the Renaissance in Europe. In a similar way, though on a somewhat smaller scale, the conveniently Imagist makeover of Chinese poetry by Ezra Pound and Amy Lowell undoubtedly had a seismic and far-reaching effect on later 20th century American poetry. In his learned Introduction to this outstanding and indispensable Anthology, Weinberger traces the many subsequent debts owed by a galaxy of fine American poets to that seminal work of re-invention. Such impressively talented scholar-translators as Burton Watson, J. P Seaton, Jonathan Chaves and several others receive an honourable mention, though their work is well anthologised elsewhere, and Weinberger¡¦s brief seems to have been only to include full-time poets: with the possible exception of Hinton, that is. (However, Sam Hamill's, Arthur Sze's and David Young's names have inexplicably been left out: all three of them marvellous contemporary re-interpreters of the classical Chinese tradition, and all three fine poets in their own right.)

Weinberger concentrates in particular on five exemplary writers: Ezra Pound himself, William Carlos Williams, Kenneth Rexroth, Gary Snyder, and David Hinton. They are certainly all major figures, and it's useful to have them grouped together in this way (particular since the last of them diverges in such interesting ways from the Imagist 'Less is More'tradition: though he certainly 'makes it new' in accordance with that central dictum, which is even quoted in the original Chinese characters both on the cover and on the titlepage).

I thought I already knew quite a lot about American translators from classical Chinese---a whole shelf of mine already groans under their weight---but the William Carlos Williams renderings were entirely new to me, and so were some of the later Pound translations.

For this reader it's hard to contain his excitement at such a beautifully produced edition (only spoiled by a spine-label that's somehow been glued on upside down), and I recommend anyone interested in either recent American poetry or in the classical Chinese tradition to go out and buy it straight away. It will admirably complement Minford and Lau's recent historical anthology of all translations (both European and American, and both scholarly and 'creative'), which of course covers a much broader range, but which is similarly ground-breaking and enthralling to read.