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Burton Watson (1925-2017)
Chinese name: 華茲生
China, 2011
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burton_Watson
https://xichuanpoetry.com/?cat=1774
Burton DeWitt Watson was born in New Rochelle, New York on June 13, 1925. When he was 17 years old, he dropped out of high school and joined the Navy. He experienced Japan through his weekly shore leaves while stationed at Yokosuka Naval Base in 1945. After returning to the United States, he received a bachelor's degree in Chinese in 1949 and a master's degree in Chinese in 1951 from Columbia University. He spent time learning Japanese as a graduate student at Kyoto University before receiving a doctorate in Chinese in 1956 from Columbia. He has taught English at Doshisha University in Kyoto and Chinese at Stanford University and Columbia. He became a translator of Chinese and Japanese literature and poetry. His numerous translations included Cold Mountain: 100 Poems by the Tang Poet Han-shan, Han Fei Tzu: Basic Writings, The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu, and The Tso Chuan: Selections from China's Oldest Narrative History. His collections included Early Chinese Literature, Chinese Lyricism: Shih Poetry from the Second to the Twelfth Century, From the Country of Eight Islands: An Anthology of Japanese Poetry, and The Columbia Book of Chinese Poetry: From Early Times to the 13th Century. He received Columbia University's Translation Center's Gold Medal Award in 1979, the PEN Translation Prize in 1981 and 1995, and the Ralph Manheim Medal for Translation in 2015. He died on April 1, 2017 at the age of 91.
PDF: “Rōhatsu Notes”
pp. 90-105.
in The Rainbow World: Japan in Essays and Translations,
by Burton Watson
Broken Moon Press, 1990, 144 p.
"Many of these essays were published previously in Japan: first impressions, second thoughts ... Some of these essays also appeared in Coyote's journal, Chanoyu quarterly, Japan quarterly, and Zero."--P. [iv]
Watson, well known as a translator of Chinese and Japanese poetry and a former professor of Chinese at Columbia, here offers 13 personal essays covering various aspects of his life in Japan, from his first arrival in that country in 1945 as a young sailor in the U.S. Navy through his years of graduate study at Kyoto University in the early 1950s to his period of permanent residence there since 1973. The essays offer a variety of insights into Japanese life and culture, with a special emphasis on Zen meditation, which the author has both studied and practiced. Watson is a well-informed and sensitive observer, whose prose carries with it a strong sense of the poetry which he has devoted so much of his life to translating. The book, which concludes with a number of his recent translations, is a work to be read slowly and savored both for its cultural insights and the beauty of its writing.
Contents
Essays
First Impression
Dark Slopes
The Rainbow World
Mibu Kyogen
Kiyomori and the Memory of the Past
The Black Fudo
Green Valley
Michizane and the Plums
Doburoku Days
There's a Word for It
Sojun
Rohatsu Notes pp. 90-105.
My Mansion on the Hill
Translations
Poems by Jakushitsu Genkō pp. 121-126.
The Poem as Souvenir
PDF: “My Later Years”
by Burton Watson
Cf. http://sino-platonic.org/complete/spp272_jonathan_chaves.pdf pp. 29-34.
Selected translations by Burton Watson:
PDF: Cold Mountain: 100 Poems by the T'ang Poet Han-Shan, 1970
PDF: The Zen Teachings of Master Lin-Chi, 1975, 1993, 1999
To the memory of my teacher, 目黒絶海 Meguro Zekkai Rōshi (1908-1990)
from the
興国寺 Kōkoku-ji, a large Zen temple south of Wakayama
Japanese Literature in Chinese, Vol. 2: Poetry & Prose in Chinese by Japanese Writers of the Later Period, 1976
Poem in Chinese (漢詩 kanshi) by Natsume Sōseki
PDF: Ryōkan, Zen Monk-Poet of Japan, by
Burton
Watson, Columbia University Press, 1977, 1992, p. 126
Contents
Introduction 1
Waka: Poems in Japanese 17
Kanshi: Poems in Chinese
71
Admonitory Words 115
Statement on Begging for Food 117
“Buddhist Poet-Priests of the T'ang.” In The Eastern Buddhist 25, no. 2 (1992): 30–58.
Chiao-jan (皎然 Jiaoran, 730-799)
Kuan-hsiu (貫休 Guanxiu, 832-912)
Ch’i-chi (齊記 Qiji, 861-940?) [=Nanyue Qiji 南嶽齊己 (861–933?)]
Ch'i-chi (864-937)
Translations by Burton Watson
In: The Clouds Should Know Me By Now: Buddhist Poet Monks of China
Wisdom Publications, 1998, pp. 43-74.
“Zen Poetry,” in Zen: Tradition and Transition, ed. Kenneth Kraft, New York: Grove Press, 1988. 105–124.
PDF: For All My Walking: Free-Verse Haiku of Taneda Santōka with Excerpts from His Diaries, 2004
The Hsin-Hsin-Ming (Inscription on Trust in the Mind) by Seng-ts'an
PDF: The Lotus Sutra tr. by Burton Watson
PDF: The Vimalakīrti Sūtra tr. by Burton Watson
PDF: Han Feizi: basic writings tr. by Burton Watson
PDF: The Analects of Confucius tr. by Burton Watson, 2007
PDF: Saigyō, poems of a mountain home, by Burton Watson, 1991
The Complete Works Of Chuang Tzu
Translated by Burton Watson
Contents
1 : Free and Easy Wandering
2 : Discussion on Making All Things Equal
3 : The Secret of Caring for Life
4 : In the World of Men
5 : The Sign of Virtue Complete
6 : The Great and Venerable Teacher
7 : Fit for Emperors and Kings
8 : Webbed Toes
9 : Horses' Hoofs
10 : Riffling Trunks
11 : Let It Be, Leave It Alone
12 : Heaven and Earth
13 : The Way of Heaven
14 : The Turning of Heaven
15 : Constrained in Will
16 : Mending the Inborn Nature
17 : Autumn Floods
18 : Perfect Happiness
19 : Mastering Life
20 : The Mountain Tree
21 : T'ien Tzu-fang
22 : Knowledge Wandered North
23 : Keng-sang C'hu
24 : Hsu Wu-kei
25 : Tse-yang
26 : External Things
27 : Inputed Words
28 : Giving Away a Throne
29 : Robber Chih
30 : Discoursing on Swords
31 : The Old Fishermman
32 : Lieh Yu-k'ou
33 : The World
Columbia UP's Jennifer Crewe on Burton Watson
At the Columbia University Press blog, associate provost and press director Jennifer Crewe, has published her remembrance in honor of Burton Watson, with whose “passing the world has lost one of its greatest translators.” She writes:
I once heard a story, perhaps apocryphal, told to me by someone who visited Burton's Tokyo apartment and watched as he sat at his manual typewriter looking at whatever book he was translating and simply typing the translation as he read the original, without having to look up any words. As a nonspeaker of Chinese and Japanese, I rely on experts to tell me whether a transition is an accurate and faithful rendition of the original. But as a reader I rely on my ear. It was clear to me that Burton was an avid reader of American poetry—particularly of the Williams era. His translations, particularly of poetry, are concise, deceptively simple, and evocative. And they employ the language of everyday speech, which is why they are so successful with students. Burton's translations opened up the world of East Asian culture to countless students and general readers. Over the years I would occasionally hear criticisms—Watson's translations were not “scholarly” enough. Burton eschewed notes, and it was often difficult to coax even an introduction out of him. But his translations will last because of the simple beauty of his English idiom. Many “scholarly” translations do not display that inner beauty. Burton's translations seem effortless. He strove for that.
