Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Chinese Songs in a French Key: How Judith Gautier's Book of Jade Introduced Europe to Chinese Poetry

Chinese Songs in a French Key: How Judith Gautier's Book of Jade Introduced Europe to Chinese Poetry

Yu, Pauline

Hardcover

Literary FiguresLiterary CriticismFrench History

ISBN10: 0231209428
ISBN13: 9780231209427
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Published: Aug 19 2025
Pages: 336
Weight: 1.43
Height: 0.88 Width: 6.14 Depth: 9.21
Language: English

In early 1867, a book of poems stunned the French literary world. Titled The Book of Jade, it featured Chinese calligraphy and named ancient Chinese poets as sources, leaving readers uncertain whether the collection was a translation or a French author's invention. Though the book was published under a pseudonym, the author was quickly recognized as Judith Gautier, the young daughter of a prominent writer. Resembling neither contemporary French verse nor any conventional translation of the day, The Book of Jade opened the eyes of readers throughout Europe to classical Chinese poetry.

Chinese Songs in a French Key tells the extraordinary story of the birth, rebirth, and rich afterlife of The Book of Jade. Pauline Yu traces the research and creative process behind the book, including Gautier's collaboration with a Chinese refugee known as Tin-Tun-Ling. She shows, through juxtapositions with original Chinese texts, how Gautier's imaginative strategies conveyed core elements of Chinese poetry to a European audience. Yu explores how the work's influence reverberated across French letters, Anglo-American modernist poetry, and the international history of translation. The story also unfolds within Gautier's network of luminaries--such as Victor Hugo, Richard Wagner, and John Singer Sargent--and against the backdrop of France's discovery of China through scholarship and plunder. Drawing attention to Gautier's audacity and accomplishments, this deeply researched and elegantly written book provides new perspectives on the surprising routes cultural transmission can take.

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