After, more than 15 years of preparation, this volume of nearly 1,600 songs and poems from the earliest times to 784 is now available. These translations aim to be both faithful to the original and alive as literature, with great attention paid to nuance, cadence, and tone. Edwin A. Cranston's extensive commentary introduces the poems and provides historical, biographical, and literary information that allows for a full appreciation of the poems. Not only does the collection include many of the nest works in the literature, it also provides evocative glimpses of the spirit and folkways of early Japanese civilization.

Edwin A. Cranston is Professor of Japanese Literature at Harvard University.

Categories

• Asian - General
• Anthologies (multiple authors)

Product Details

ISBN: 9780804731577
ISBN-10: 0804731578
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Publication Date: March 1st, 1998
Pages: 1016
Language: English
Series: Waka Anthology

"Building a cathedral takes time and determination. And a cathedral A Waka Anthology is. ...A Waka Anthology's two volumes do give us a sense of what is possible if one is Edwin Cranston."—Ivo Smits, Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies

"Monumental in size and extraordinary in quality. . . . As a translator, Cranston is unexcelled, both in the uncompromising accuracy of his readings and in his sense of the weight and music of English words."—Choice.

"A review of The Gem-glistening Cup is almost superfluous. It is literally without peer. . . . It is a monument that will dominate the field of Japanese literary studies in English for the foreseeable future and beyond. . . . Cranston's translations are as good as one could expect from his excellent versions of the Izumi Shikibu Diary. . . . This will be the foundation of many courses in years to come."—Japan Forum

"Cranston is one of the finest translators of classical Japanese. . . . A Gem-glistening Cup makes an invaluable contribution for students of Japanese literature."—South Atlantic Review