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Chinese edition of The Four Seasons by Xiang Yang.
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English edition of The Four Seasons, trns.
by John Balcom.
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About The Four Seasons
The Chinese
edition of The Four Seasons ( 四季 ) was
published in l986. This combines many of the qualities of
Xiang Yang's earlier work: the formalism of ten-line poems, the use
of dialect, the abiding presence of the Taiwan landscape, and a strong
social consciousness. The twenty-four poems in the book, one for each of the
twenty-four periods of the traditional Chinese agricultural calendar,
provide the reader with a comprehensive picture of Taiwan in the l980s.
The early poems in the sequence
tend to be landscape poems in which man lives in harmony with nature. As the
sequence progresses, however, the rural orientation gradually shifts, and the
urban intrudes ever more, and a somber tone gradually takes hold. The single
text spans the seasons and the changes they bring to the island, the
socioeconomic development of the place, as well as encompassing the whole
spectrum of human moods and emotions.
The
English edition was translated by
John Balcom, published
by Taoran Press at Monterey, CA, USA, in 1993. |
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