Siegel und Siegelschrift der Chou-, Ch'in- und Han - Dynastie by Willibald VeitReview by: William G. BoltzJournal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 107, No. 4 (Oct. - Dec., 1987), pp. 833-834Published by: American Oriental SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/603369 .

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Brief Review of Books 833

A Brotherhood in Song: Chinese Poetry and Poetics. Edited by STEPHEN C. SOONG. Pp. 386, with illustrations. (A Renditions Book) Hong Kong: THE CHINESE UNIVERSITY

PRESS (distributed by University of Washington Press). 1986. $36.00.

The contents include an introductory essay by the editor on "The Chinese Poetic Tradition," which is as general and rambling as the title suggests, and contributions apportioned into four sections as follows. The first section, "Poetics," consists of five essays: "Poetry as a Vehicle of Grief" by Ch'ien Chung-shu (translated by Siu-kit Wong), "Li Shang- yin's 'Four Yen-t'ai Poems"' by Yeh Chia-ying (translated by James R. Hightower), "Chiang K'uei's Poetics" by the late James J. Y. Liu, "Li Po and Tu Fu: A Comparative Study" by Huang Kuo-pin, and "Form in Poetry" by Wen I-to (translated by Randy Trumbull). The second section, "Poetry," features translations of poems from various periods, occasionally with brief critical comments by the translators. Included are "Five Poems" by Juan Chi, Li Ho, Wei Chuang, and Ts'ao Hsieh-ch'in translated by David Hawkes; Li Po's "The Hard Road to Shu" translated by A. C. Graham; "Some Mid-T'ang Quatrains" translated by Stephen Owen; "Six Poems" by Po Chu-i, Chiang Chieh, Hsin Ch'i-chi, and Anonymous translated by Arthur Cooper; "Fifteen Selected Lyrics" by Po Chd-i, Huang-fu Sung, Wen T'ing-yun, and Wei Chuang translated by D. C. Lau; "Seven Poems by Lu Yu" translated by Burton Watson; "Double Brightness" by Li Ch'ing-chao translated by John Minford; "Five Tz'u Songs by Wu Wen-ying" translated by Grace S. Fong; "Fifteen Yuan San-ch 'u" translated by C. H. Kwock and Gary G. Gach; "Ten Ming Songs" by Hsieh Lun-tao, Liu Hsiao-tsu, Chu Tsai-yti, and Wang P'an translated by K. C. Leung; "Thirteen Lyric Poems by Chu Hsiang" trans- lated by Bonnie S. McDougall; "Eleven Poems by Mu Tan" translated by Pang Bingjun; and "Ten Poems by Cheng Ch'ou-yti" translated by Huang Kuo-pin. Section Three, "The Art of Poetry Translation," offers three essays on translation. The first, by Stephen C. Soong, discusses "The 'Biased Compound' in Chinese Poetic Diction," i.e., com- pounds in which the meaning of one of the two (semantically opposed) elements predominates. The other two essays are curiosities: "This Ancient Man is 1: Kenneth Rexroth's Versions of Tu Fu" by Ling Chung (interesting only for those who can take Rexroth's renderings seriously) and "To Keep Them from Falling: On Some of the Translator's Responsibilities with Particular Reference to Chinese Poetry in English" by John Cayley (a turgid defense of "literary translation" which rarely touches on anything specific). Sec- tion Four, "Poems on Poetry," includes a short essay by John Timothy Wixted on "Sung-Dynasty and Western Poems on Poetry," translations by the same author of

"Poems on Poetry" by Tai Fu-ku and Yuan Hao-wen, and some translations by John Minford of "Poems on Poetry from the Ch'ing Dynasty."

As one has come to expect from the Renditions series, the emphasis here is for the most part on producing pretty paraphrases that attempt to capture mood and feeling, in- stead of presenting philologically sound translations. The best section of the book is certainly the first, in which all of the essays except that by Huang offer sensible and often stimulating critical perspectives on the chosen topics.

PAUL W. KROLL

UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO, BOULDER

Siegel und Siegelschrift der Chou-, Ch'in- und Han -Dynastie. By WILLIBALD VEIT. Pp. 297, with 198 plates. (Studien zur ostasiatischen Schriftkunst, Bd. 4) Wiesbaden: FRANZ STEINER VERLAG. 1985. DM 96,-.

Not only is this work an exceptionally detailed account of the seals and seal script of the Chou, Ch'in, and Han periods, it is also a richly informative survey of the technical and aesthetic aspects of early Chinese script in general.

Following a brief introduction, section 2 of the book gives a discussion of the various kinds of early seals known, e.g., official administrative seals, private seals, the famous "State- Transmitting Seal," etc., their roles and significance in Chou, Ch'in, and Han times, including a particularly interesting, if brief, note on the importance of seals to Han relations with the Hsiung-nu. This is followed in section 3 by a discussion of the origin of seals, including the question of whether or not there was a system of seals already in existence in Shang times. The discovery of three seals from Shang sites shows that such things existed, but it does not reveal the nature or extent of their use.

Section 4 is a finely detailed and carefully presented survey of the technical development of the script from its earliest Shang chia ku wen form down to the Han. Veit also raises here a few brief comments on the marks found on pieces of pottery from the neolithic site at Pan-p'o village, and from Ta wen k'ou sites, and their possible connection with Chinese writing of the Shang. He stops short of suggesting any direct link between these neolithic marks and the Shang script of the late second millennium B.C.

In his survey of the development of the form of the script from mid-Chou to the Han the author gives a state-by-state resume of the major calligraphic features and distinguishing characteristics that can be associated with the script of each state, and also draws attention to basic differences between the script in the north and that of the south, i.e., the states of Ch'u, Wu, and Yueh in particular.

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834 Journal of the American Oriental Society 107.4 (1987)

The heart of the study comes in sections 5 and 6, the former on the thematic content of the seals during the Warring States, Ch'in and Han periods, their physical form, material substance, and modes of production, and the latter on the evolution of the script of these seals, again presented with very detailed state-by-state, type-by-type analyses, and with pertinent comparisons to the script as seen in some of the recently unearthed pre-Han and early Han silk man- uscripts, e.g., those from Ma wang tui.

The narrative portion of the volume is supplemented with 198 photographic plates replete with examples of every kind of seal, impression, stamp, and calligraphic feature discussed, and of related objects and inscriptions mentioned in the text, such as bronzes and ceramics and the inscriptions they often carry. The book is surely the most comprehensive and sub- stantial work on seals and seal script down to the end of the Han yet to be produced in the West, and stands as an impressive record of its author's scholarship and labor.

WILLIAM G. BOLTZ

UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON

America's China Trade in Historical Perspective: The Chinese and American Performance. Edited by ERNEST R. MAY

and JOHN K. FAIRBANK. Pp. 388, with 54 tables. (Harvard Studies in American-East Asian Relations, No. 11) Cam- bridge, Mass.: COUNCIL ON EAST ASIAN STUDIES, HARVARD

UNIVERSITY. 1986. $21.00.

The China trade has been the exotic setting for past adventure movies and recent novels. It evokes romantic images of American clipper ships speeding across the Pacific for the Eastern entrepot of Shanghai to purchase tea and silk. Alas, it was nothing more than a romance. With facts in hand, the essays in this conference volume debunk the myth of the China market.

The nine essays in this work are organized into three logical sections: China's Major Export Trades, American Imports into China, and Perspectives on Trade and Invest- ment. As the names of parts I and II suggest, they contain assessments of the trade performance of specific commodities that were exported from or imported to China: tea, silk, cotton textiles, tobacco, and petroleum. The authors of these case studies have adopted an actuarial approach to the analysis of Sino-American trade. They systematically cal- culate the market success of a product and have gathered together a formidable array of quantitative data to support their contentions. The third and last part contains two general studies: Peter Schran provides a sober overall assess- ment of Sino-American foreign trade and Mira Wilkins an

informative analysis of the ways in which American multi- national corporations have included China in their activities.

After carefully reviewing the evidence and weighing the arguments, even the committed anti-imperialist ideologue would find it difficult to avoid concluding that the trade was of marginal significance to the economies of both China and the United States. Entrepreneurs who are enamored with the possibilities of Sino-American commerce should take heart, however. They should find solace in the fact that though bi-lateral trade was minimal, certain firms made money and lots of it from the sale of such affordable consumer products as cigarettes and kerosene. With the exception of Sherman Cochran's thoughtful piece on the imperialist activities of the British-American Tobacco Company, these essays pose a serious challenge to scholars and students who are convinced that the United States had an exploitative economic relation- ship with China.

Businessmen involved with international trade will find this to be their kind of book, for it is dispassionate and didactic. But for those who believe that history should be about the life of people and of humanity, it will be found wanting. Somewhere amongst the numbers the human element was lost.

WILLIAM WEI

UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO, BOULDER

Chinese Democracy. By ANDREW J. NATHAN. Pp. xiii + 313. Berkeley: UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS. 1986. Paper, $8.95.

Rarely is a book as timely as Chinese Democracy. If you want to understand the past several months of talk in the Chinese press about the need for political reform to com- plement economic reform and the student upheavals that took place in the People's Republic of China during the months of December 1986 and January 1987, you should rush out and obtain a copy. For what Andrew J. Nathan does in this admirable book is to evaluate the evolution of democracy in China from 1895 to 1985, and democracy is what the recent discussions and demonstrations have been about.

Nathan vividly describes the efforts of intellectuals, begin- ning with Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao, to adapt de- mocracy to China's circumstances, and cogently analyzes its meaning in the Chinese cultural context. In the course of doing this, he discusses such relevant topics as the tension that exists between democratic ideals and state institutions, the role of the media in the people's quest for more freedom, and the official limits placed on any mass movement, past, present, and future.

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