“I detect in it something that he does not specify: a reason for the continuance of poetry as a live factor among his people.”

Seeking the cultural conditions that allow poetry to remain a living art · Essay, Poetry and Culture, introduction to The Jade Mountain (1929)

• Poetry
• Time

“Because of the absence of tenses, of personal pronouns and of connectives generally, the translator of Chinese poetry, like the Chinese reader himself, has considerable leeway as to interpretation.”

Recognising the interpretative freedom and responsibility involved in translating Chinese verse · Essay, Poetry and Culture, introduction to The Jade Mountain (1929)

• Art
• Poetry
• Truth

“I had come to feel that poetic literature must contain streams from one or the other of these two sources: the Greek and the Hebrew.”

Reflecting on the Western literary inheritance he received in his education · Essay, Poetry and Culture, introduction to The Jade Mountain (1929)

• Art
• Poetry