{"id":3678,"date":"2017-04-11T09:30:41","date_gmt":"2017-04-11T01:30:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=3678"},"modified":"2017-04-23T15:47:02","modified_gmt":"2017-04-23T07:47:02","slug":"3678","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=3678","title":{"rendered":"Jonathan Chaves on Burton Watson (1925 \u2013 2017)"},"content":{"rendered":"

In honor of Burton Watson\u2019s passing, <\/span>I am collecting statements and memories from friends and fans, to be posted as they come in. The following remembrance is from Jonathan Chaves, professor of Chinese at George Washington University:<\/em><\/p>\n

I am deeply saddened by the death of Burton Watson. He has been an inspiration to me as scholar and translator, and he was my mentor and teacher at Columbia University while I was studying for\u00a0the PhD in Chinese Literature. The translations of Arthur Waley first revealed the riches of Chinese poetry to me, and he and Watson have always been my two supreme exemplars in this field.<\/em><\/p>\n

Watson was the first person to whom I showed my early translations, and with characteristic understatement, he limited his comments to saying, “You’re doing fine. Just keep on like this.” That was all I needed from him; I knew I could do it after that.<\/em><\/p>\n

The 2004 edition of my book, <\/em>Heaven My Blanket, Earth My Pillow is dedicated to Burton Watson.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Contact me if you would like to add your own remembrance.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In honor of Burton Watson\u2019s passing, I am collecting statements and memories from friends and fans, to be posted as they come in. The following remembrance is from Jonathan Chaves, professor of Chinese at George Washington University: I am deeply … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1774],"tags":[603,436,1489],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s8srwF-3678","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3256,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=3256","url_meta":{"origin":3678,"position":0},"title":"Salutations; a Festschrift for Burton Watson","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"August 3, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Announcing, from\u00a0Ahadada \/ Ekleksographia, Salutations; a Festschrift for Burton Watson. Edited by Jesse Glass and Philip Williams, this collection of essays, articles, and poems about Chinese and Japanese literature and culture celebrates the illustrious scholarly career of Burton Watson, whose range of excellent literary translations into English from Japanese and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Links"","block_context":{"text":"Links","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2987,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=2987","url_meta":{"origin":3678,"position":1},"title":"Han-shan and the Cult of Translation","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"February 9, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"The Poetry Matters blog has run an article titled \"Han-shan and the Cult of Translation,\" reading the various translations by Red Pine (Bill Porter), J P Seaton, Gary Snyder, Arthur Waley, and Burton Watson of a poem by medieval recluse poet(s) Cold Mountain \/ Han-shan \u5bd2\u5c71. The poem in question\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Links"","block_context":{"text":"Links","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3424,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=3424","url_meta":{"origin":3678,"position":2},"title":"Weinberger on Hinton’s and Minford’s versions of the I Ching","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"February 29, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Eliot Weinberger writes about two new translations of the I Ching (Yijing) \u6613\u7d93 in the NYRB: The two latest translations of the\u00a0I Ching\u00a0couldn\u2019t be more unalike; they are a complementary\u00a0yin\u00a0and\u00a0yang\u00a0of approaches. John Minford is a scholar best known for his work on the magnificent five-volume translation of\u00a0The Story of the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Links"","block_context":{"text":"Links","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nybooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/weinberger_1-022516.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3569,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=3569","url_meta":{"origin":3678,"position":3},"title":"Mazanec on Rouzer’s Hanshan Translations","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"November 2, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Tom Mazanec has posted about Paul Rouzer's new translation of Hanshan \u5bd2\u5c71 (Cold Mountain) for de Gruyter's Library of Chinese Humanities--now available for sale and free download. As Tom notes, some of the Hanshan corpus was \"famously translated by Gary Snyder in 1958 [and] later celebrated by Jack Kerouac in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Links"","block_context":{"text":"Links","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.degruyter.com\/doc\/cover\/9781501501913.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3712,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=3712","url_meta":{"origin":3678,"position":4},"title":"Columbia UP’s Jennifer Crewe on Burton Watson","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"May 1, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"At the Columbia University Press blog, associate provost and press director Jennifer Crewe, has published her remembrance in honor of Burton Watson, with whose \"passing the world has lost one of its greatest translators.\" She writes: I once heard a story, perhaps apocryphal, told to me by someone who visited\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Burton Watson remembrance"","block_context":{"text":"Burton Watson remembrance","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?cat=1774"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3671,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=3671","url_meta":{"origin":3678,"position":5},"title":"John Bradley on Burton Watson (1925 \u2013 2017)","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"April 10, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"In honor of Burton Watson\u2019s passing, I am collecting statements and memories from friends and fans, to be posted as they come in. The following remembrance is by John Bradley, from his review of Salutations; a Festschrift for Burton Watson (Ahadada \/ Ekleksographia, 2015), originally published in Rain Taxi #81\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Burton Watson remembrance"","block_context":{"text":"Burton Watson remembrance","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?cat=1774"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3678"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3678"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3678\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3680,"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3678\/revisions\/3680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}