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WOMEN WRITERS OF TRADITIONAL CHINA: An Anthology of Poetry and Criticism. Edited by Kang-I Sun Chang and Haun Saussy. Stanford (California): Stanford University Press. 2000. xxiv, 891 pp. US$75.00, cloth. ISBN 0-8047-3230-2.
There are many brilliant minds yet to be appreciated by posterity, and this groundbreaking, much-needed sourcebook for poetry and criticism in translation constitutes a great advance towards their recognition. Over 500 pages of the book remedy the paucity of Ming-Qing women's poetry studies, the book's main emphasis (p. 8-10). (Indeed, this poetry in general has yet to be studied.) The book delivers the poetry and prose without much commentary, serving up a banquet of genuine human feeling - not arbitrary theorizing.
After an informative fourteen-page introduction, 127 entries for individuals or groups of poets span 648 pages. Each contains a short biographical sketch followed by annotated translations of poems. The next 137 pages offer fifty translations of critical works, followed by explanations of genre and song-titles, a bibliography, and...