The Shaman and the Heresiarch: A New Interpretation of the Li sao

Acknowledgments

ix Acknowledgments Now that I have been a teacher of Asian literature for well over a decade, I look back in gratitude, and sometimes wonder, to those who taught me. My first teacher, one of the very best, was Mrs. Yuan Ming-ch’iu, who had the good fortune to teach me when I was still a decent student. At Yale University, for various personal reasons, I became quite the opposite. Those unfortunate enough to have me as a student then were Hugh Stimson, who taught me linguistic rigor; Hans Frankel, who taught me Tang poetry; Jonathan Spence, who would have taught me many things if I had simply shown up; and Stanley Insler, who in trying to teach me Sanskrit taught me how to critically approach traditional commentaries. There is such a thing as profitably wasting time—but only while one is young. I tried to make amends by going to Taiwan where the teachers at the Guoyu Ribao, and fine tutors like Luo Chi-yun, one of the best students of Chen Guying, helped me relaunch my boat. Columbia University, and especially the great C. T. Hsia, who taught me the vernacular of the Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties, offered me a second harbor. I am especially indebted to the late Charles Lo, who taught me how to get through Qing officialese; Hans Bielenstein, who taught me the rigorous reading methods of his teacher, Bernhard Karlgren; Robert Ramsey, who taught me historical phonology; Paul Rouzer, who taught me Li Bai and how to finish a doctoral dissertation and enter the professorial world; and my mentor, Professor Wu Pei-yi, who taught me everything. My work on the Li sao could not have been undertaken without the help of the professors on the cutting edge of Chu Studies in China—Shi Quan, Wang Guanghao, and Xu Shaohua, and many others in the History and Archaeology Department at Wuhan University—providing me a transformative cultural perspective on ancient Chinese literature. My thanks to them and to Tang Yiming, who wrote a letter of introduction to Professor Hu x The Shaman and the Heresiarch Guorui, with whom I had discussions on Chinese poetry that were as enlightening as they were entertaining. I am grateful also to what was then known as the Committee on Scholarly Communication with the People’s Republic of China for the generous grant that allowed me the invaluable opportunity of going to China to learn from such scholars. My heartfelt thanks also to those who kept me from sinking while I was writing the dissertation on which this book is based: Gari Ledyard, who, among other important things, lent me his office; Robert Hymes, who read my drafts and “warned me of the unforeseen”; Paul Anderer, who offered practical advice and one of the most enjoyable courses I have ever taken; Gina Bookhout, who mercifully saved me at many junctures; Jim Cuna, who saved me at the last minute; and Burton Watson, who having read the first chapter of the dissertation, advised me on what it means to be a translator and how to write a book. I must also offer thanks to the three members of my doctoral defense committee who have since, unfortunately, passed away: Irene Bloom, the great Neo-Confucian scholar; Barbara Miller, the renowned Sanskritist; and Father Paul Serruys, a true sinologist of the old European tradition, who went through my Li sao glosses and translation with as fine-toothed a comb as I have ever seen, and whose approval, though characteristically sparing, gave me the confidence to go on. I have benefited greatly from the suggestions and opinions of friends and colleagues who read earlier drafts of this book or heard my papers concerning relevant aspects of it. These are too numerous to mention in detail, but special thanks to Alexander Brown, Zia Jaffrey, Galal Walker, Lisa Raphals, Lothar von Falkenhausen, Mark Edwards, Henry Schwab, Stephen Field, Alain Thote, Elizabeth Childs-Johnson, Haun Saussy, Sonya Alland, Barry Blakely, Ellen Neskar, Ari Borel, Kidder Smith, Michael Puett, Paul Goldin, Laurel Kendall, Sarah Allan, Michael Schimmelpfennig, Constance Cook, and John Major. The last two were the first to give me a venue, and a push, to publish some of my ideas about Chu and Qu Yuan in print. I am particularly grateful to Mick Stern, who read my translations of the Li sao and the Nine Songs with a poet’s eye and suggested changes accordingly; and to Charlotte Boynton for her careful and...