{"product_id":"shi-jing-or-book-of-songs-chinas-earliest-verse-anthology-9798464292277","title":"Shi-Jing, or Book of Songs: China's Earliest Verse Anthology","description":"The \u003ci\u003eShi-Jing, \u003c\/i\u003e or Book of Songs, is a rendering of China's oldest verse anthology of poets, from the 11th to the 7th century BCE. It's time we moderns got to know it well-for the sheer pleasure of experiencing the colorful multitude of 325 intimate voices. There's a direct, earnest warmth about the lyrical expressions of all the people we overhear, and it is a privilege to enter into their confidence. They are so alive they startle me, and they'll speak on what they care about.\u003cbr\u003eThe poems are offered in the versions I translate using the endlessly varied melodious forms devised for them by the phenomenally gifted 19th-century poet-translator Friedrich Rückert. He is correct in saying he has \"appropriated\" [angeeignet] his materials. The anonymous collection is reshaped and newly crafted by this world-class German poet and linguistic genius, who was himself a major humanist educator. In disclosing that double role, Rückert's \u003ci\u003eShi-Jing\u003c\/i\u003e may be called his own centrally symbolic achievement, his paradigm contribution to world literature.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Independently Published","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50387300155666,"sku":"9798464292277","price":15.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_39e33963-1d91-43a8-ade5-2778614fb54a.jpg?v=1728877319","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/shi-jing-or-book-of-songs-chinas-earliest-verse-anthology-9798464292277","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}