Library

"Man'yoshu" is the oldest and largest extant collection of Japanese songs in Japan. It contains a huge collection of more than 4,500 Japanese songs from the early seventh century to the middle of the eighth century. It not only records colorful Japanese songs for future generations, but also provides future generations of readers with relevant situations and information on Japanese society, politics, culture, customs and other aspects of that period. From the perspective of literary history, it has the significance of connecting the past and the future. Waka, which was gradually separated from the ancient model of oral singing of ballads and group creation, continued to develop under the strong influence of Han culture, and made leaps and bounds in many aspects, including expression forms and singing themes. It eventually formed the unique artistic style and aesthetic characteristics of Manyo Waka, which set a model for subsequent waka creations. The translator of this book, Mr. Qian Daosun, has been engaged in the translation of Japanese classical literature for many years during his lifetime. He has profound knowledge and a good foundation in classical Chinese. He can translate Waka using stylistic forms of different periods according to the different creation periods of Waka. This book is about 700 Man'yo poems that he carefully selected and translated. Although it accounts for a small proportion of the entire Man'yo Collection, the translation is elegant and beautiful, and it is a rare example of translation of foreign classical poetry.