This collection of 97 Cantonese love songs aims to give a wider audience the opportunity of reading these songs in English. The author investigates the language and social background of the songs and provides cross-references to Chinese and Western literature.The Chinese text of the poems is also included.

Excerpt from Cantonese Love-Songs: Translated With Introduction and Notes But even apart from this the Songs commend themselves by the directness and simplicity of their style. Difficulties arise, not in interpretation, but from the large number of allusions to history, mythology, and novel literature - allusions which are not always familiar even to well-read Chinamen, though the context usually places the general meaning of the passage beyond doubt. The love-theme remains the same in all the Songs; in fact, their chief fault is a tedious reiteration of similar ideas. Even such a change of theme as that in Song LXIX is most welcome to the reader, whose interest is stimulated by contrasting the manner in which Ovid (amor. I. Viii. 23 - 108) has treated a Similar subject, though from a moral point of view the contrast is not greatly to the advantage of the Roman poet. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.