Poetry. Prose. Asian Studies. Translated from the Chinese by Burton Watson. This volume consists of twenty-five of Watson's new translations, shown alongside Lu You's poems as they appear in the original. In addition to the poems, Watson includes English translations of excerpts from Lu You's famous Ra Draii (Diary of a Trip to Shu), written in 1170, which describes his experiences on a journey he took to assume the duties of vice governor in the province of Kuizhou. Lu You (1125-1210) whose pen name was 'The Old Man Who Does as He Pleases,' was among the most prolific of Chinese poets, having left behind a collection of close to ten thousand poems as well as miscellaneous prose writings. Burton Watson is a distinguished translator from the Chinese and Japanese who has translated several works. "Burton Watson is the finest, most consistent, most generous translator of Chinese literature of this century" -- Gary Snyder.

About the author: Born into a scholarly family near present day Shaoxing two years before the Northern Song dynasty fell to the Jin, Lu You spent the first nine years of his life as a refugee. He obtained the jinshi degree in 1153 and enjoyed a long official career, punctuated by several periods of exile. His last twenty years were spent in rural retirement in his native place. The most prolific lyric poet of the Southern Song era, he is often called the 'patriotic poet' because of the many poems he wrote expressing his loyalty to the Song and support for war against the Jin, but actually most of his nearly 10,000 shi are non-political. Other themes are Taoist or pastoral, and he also wrote a comprehensive diary of his travels in Sichuan.