XIAOFEI TIAN. Visionary Journeys: Travel Writings from Early Medieval and Nineteenth-Century China.

Abstract

This book proceeds on a premise that might seem odd to historians: that the early medieval period (fourth–early fifth centuries) can be usefully compared with the nineteenth. If you work on the assumption that nothing has really changed in China before the twentieth century, then such a premise is plausible, but Xiaofei Tian does not. She clearly states that at neither time would static be an appropriate adjective for China. So, what is she talking about? This is a book—and a wonderful book it is—about travel and poetry, form and content. Although it concentrates on the fourth and nineteenth centuries, it cherry-picks magisterially throughout earlier and intervening centuries as well. Tian translates numerous poems, and I mean numerous. This book could easily be used as a text on how (beautifully) to translate Chinese poetry. Tian concentrates on poetic travelogues, real and imaginary, and on the use of various travel metaphors in poetry. It must be mentioned that early medieval Chinese poetry is notoriously difficult to understand, let alone translate, although Tian does both with great fluency. At times, in the first section on the earlier period, one might wonder what the text has to do with travel at all, but Tian returns us to earth with analyses of travel to imaginary places, imagined places (real places never actually seen), and occasionally real places. Much more attention is focused here on poetic genre and trope than on the historical timeline.