{"id":3753,"date":"2017-05-05T09:00:05","date_gmt":"2017-05-05T01:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=3753"},"modified":"2017-05-04T15:18:03","modified_gmt":"2017-05-04T07:18:03","slug":"burton-watson-obituary-in-nytimes-books-section","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=3753","title":{"rendered":"Burton Watson Obituary in NYTimes Books Section"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The New York Times books section has published an obituary of Burton Watson<\/a>, over a month after he passed away. William Grimes writes:<\/em><\/p>\n

Burton Watson, whose spare, limpid translations, with erudite introductions, opened up the world of classical Japanese and Chinese literature to generations of English-speaking readers, died on April 1 in Kamagaya, Japan. He was 91.<\/em><\/p>\n

…<\/em><\/p>\n

He rendered the poems of such classic Chinese writers as Su Tung-p\u2019o, Po Chu-I and Du Fu and the Japanese poets Ryokan and Masaoka Shiki in a contemporary idiom informed by his wide reading in modern American poetry. In \u201cNineteen Ways of Looking at Wang Wei\u201d (1987), the essayist Eliot Weinberger described Mr. Watson as not only \u201ca prolific and particularly fine translator\u201d but also \u201cthe first scholar whose work displays an affinity with the modernist revolution in American poetry: absolute precision, concision, and the use of everyday speech.\u201d His admirers included the poets Gary Snyder and W. S. Merwin.<\/em><\/p>\n

In 2015, the literary organization PEN awarded Mr. Watson its Ralph Manheim Medal for Translation, calling him \u201cthe inventor of classical East Asian poetry for our time.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Click on the image for the article in full.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The New York Times books section has published an obituary of Burton Watson, over a month after he passed away. William Grimes writes: Burton Watson, whose spare, limpid translations, with erudite introductions, opened up the world of classical Japanese and … 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":[1774,3],"tags":[1591,180,47,435,1836,1803,1593,1785,1590,1724,1789,1788,1793,1835],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8srwF-Yx","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3671,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=3671","url_meta":{"origin":3753,"position":0},"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":[]},{"id":3685,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=3685","url_meta":{"origin":3753,"position":1},"title":"Jeffrey Yang on Burton Watson (1925 \u2013 2017)","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"April 8, 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 comment is from Jeffrey Yang, poet, translator, and editor at New York Review Books and New Directions: For me, Burton Watson exists as an emanation\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":2741,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=2741","url_meta":{"origin":3753,"position":2},"title":"Forthcoming: Burton Watson’s Chinese Rhyme-Prose Re-release","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"September 1, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Burton Watson's 1971 collection Chinese Rhyme-Prose will be re-released as part of the New York Review Books \/ Chinese University Press Calligrams series, with a short essay of mine as a preface. Here's a sample of the jacket copy from the publishers: The fu, or rhyme-prose, is a major poetic\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":3716,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=3716","url_meta":{"origin":3753,"position":3},"title":"Burton Watson NYTimes Obituary","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"April 24, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"The New York Times has finally published an obituary of Burton Watson. It reads: Burton Dewitt Watson, scholar and translator of Chinese and Japanese literature, died on April 1, 2017, in Japan at the age of 92. As winner of the PEN\/Ralph Manheim Medal in 2015, Dr. Watson was regarded\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Burton Watson remembrance"","block_context":{"text":"Burton Watson remembrance","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?cat=1774"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ak-cache.legacy.net\/legacy\/images\/Cobrands\/nytimes\/Photos\/185122853.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3256,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=3256","url_meta":{"origin":3753,"position":4},"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":3678,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=3678","url_meta":{"origin":3753,"position":5},"title":"Jonathan Chaves on Burton Watson (1925 \u2013 2017)","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"April 11, 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 from Jonathan Chaves, professor of Chinese at George Washington University: I am deeply saddened by the death of Burton Watson. He has been\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\/3753"}],"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=3753"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3753\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3755,"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3753\/revisions\/3755"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}