num_pages: 160
description: This question is fundamental to the Taoist and Ch'an (Zen) Buddhist worldview that shapes classical Chinese poetry. A uniquely conceived biography illuminates that worldview through the life and work of Tu Fu (712-770 C.E.) China's greatest classical poet. Tu Fu's writing traces his life from periods of relative normalcy to years spent as an impoverished refugee amid the devastation of civil war. Exploring key poems to guide the reader through Tu Fu's dramatic life reveals Taoist/Ch'an insight deeply lived across the full range of human experience.Each chapter presents a poem in three stages: first the original Chinese; then an English translation in Hinton's masterful style; and finally a lyrical essay that discusses the untranslatable philosophical dimensions of the poem. The result is nothing short of remarkable: a biography of the Cosmos awakened to itself in the form of a magisterial poet alive in T'ang Dynasty China.Thirty years ago David Hinton published America's first full-length translation of Tu Fu's work. is published simultaneously with a newly translated and substantially expanded version of that landmark translation: (New Directions).
language: English
title: Awakened Cosmos: The Mind of Classical Chinese Poetry
publisher: Shambhala