Cold Mountain

"He translated a number of collections but this is one of his translations I read first. I like Burton Watson’s translation because it’s both scholarly and good literature. He does a lot of research, so the translation is really reliable; he has lots of notes and it’s clearly a work of scholarship. But at the same time it’s not an academic translation with so many notes that the poem itself is hardly readable. He is a very good combination of scholarship and literature. Ironically, Han-Shan is better known out of China than in China , mainly because of translations like this. Han-Shan was a good Tang dynasty [AD 618-907] poet, but not that well known. But in English, if you’re talking about classical Chinese poetry lots of people immediately think of Han-Shan. That’s interesting, and to the credit of the translators. For the Tang dynasty people would immediately say Li Bai (also spelt Li Po). Han-Shan, if you want a number, would be maybe number 20 or 30 – he wouldn’t even make the top 10. Yes, definitely."