“I have hoped rather to accent in these T'ang masterpieces the human and…” — Witter Bynner

“I have hoped rather to accent in these T'ang masterpieces the human and universal qualities by which they have endured.”

Stating his aim of preserving the enduring human qualities of the poems in translation · Essay, Poetry and Culture, introduction to The Jade Mountain (1929)

Witter Bynner

About Witter Bynner

10 August 1881–1 June 1968

Harold Witter Bynner, who published almost always as Witter Bynner and was known to friends as “Hal,” was born on 10 August 1881 in Brooklyn, New York, and died on 1 June 1968 in Santa Fe, New Mexico. His long career carried him through several distinct literary eras: the cultivated, metrically formal verse of the…

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“It will so continue to be, in spite of the apparent shocks given it by the noises of modern commerce and science and jazz.”

Affirming poetry's resilience amid the pressures and distractions of modern life · Essay, Poetry and Culture, introduction to The Jade Mountain (1929)

“I have come by accident into as close touch with Chinese poetry as a westerner is able to come without a knowledge of the Chinese tongue.”

Acknowledging both his immersion in Chinese poetry and the limits of translation · Essay, Poetry and Culture, introduction to The Jade Mountain (1929)

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Poetry

“That passionate patience which is the core of life.”

Condensing Bynner's ideal of attentive, enduring engagement with existence · Essay, Poetry and Culture, introduction to The Jade Mountain (1929)

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