Han Mac Tu
| Hàn Mặc Tử | |
|---|---|
 Hàn Mặc Tử |
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| Born | September 22, 1912 Đồng Hới District, Quảng Bình Province, Vietnam |
| Died | November 11, 1940 (aged 0) Qui Nhon, Binh Dinh Province, Vietnam |
| Resting place | Qui Nhon, Binh Dinh Province, Vietnam |
| Occupation | poet |
| Language | Vietnamese |
| Nationality | Vietnamese |
| Ethnicity | Vietnamese people |
| Citizenship | Vietnamese people |
Hàn Mặc Tử (September 22, 1912 - November 11, 1940) was a Vietnamese poet. He was born Nguyễn Trọng Trí, at Lệ Mỹ Village, Đồng Hới District, Quảng Bình Province.[1] His pen names included: Minh Duệ, Phong Trần, Lệ Thanh, and finally Hàn Mặc Tử,[2] by which name is known today. He grew up in a poor family, his father having died when he was young. He showed poetic talent at a young age. When he met Phan Bội Châu, he received encouragement and praise that made him well-known.[2] He contracted leprosy in 1937, and was finally hospitalized at Quy Hòa Hospital in September 1940, where he died two months later.
His many poems addressed to real or fictive women - in the manner of Giacomo Leopardi in the West, for example - remain popular, and he is known as a love poet in Vietnam. His poems on folk subjects are also well-known.
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[edit] Poetry
Hàn Mặc Tử's early poems - praised by Phan Bội Châu - are famous for their purity of diction and form, and show him to be a fluent Classicist with a strong interest in realistic subjects. Subsequently, his poetry showed the influence of French Symbolism, and after he fell sick, became increasingly violent and despondent. Personal despair combined with the search for poetic novelty led him to found the short-lived "Disordered" (Loạn) or "Mad" (Ðiên) school of poetry. More than a love poet, Hàn Mặc Tử was a Modernist, who sought to fuse, in a new poetic language, disparate traditions and experiences. Beginning with poems that refreshed the Classical tradition, he went on to absorb the French influence, which he directed toward the turbulence of his own painful history. His language, increasingly tortured, remained both Classical and innovative throughout; and though a Catholic, he made frequent use of Buddhist ideas and imagery.[citation needed]
[edit] Collections
- Gái Quê (Country Girls) 1936, the only collection published during his lifetime
- Chơi Giữa Mùa Trăng (Playing in the Moon Season)
- Xuân Như Ý (Ideal Spring)
- Ðau Thương (Suffering)
- Thượng Thanh Khí [needs translation]
- Cẩm Châu Duyên [needs translation]
[edit] Poetry in English
Hàn Mặc Tử's poetry has not appeared in credible English translations. His complex late style compounds the problems related to translating Vietnamese poetry into English; while the purity of his early style presents another set of challenges. Notably, Huỳnh Sanh Thông did not include him his comprehensive An Anthology of Vietnamese Poems. Yale University Press. 2001..
[edit] References
- ^ Cung Giu Nguyên (1955). "Contemporary Vietnamese Writing". Books Abroad (University of Oklahoma) 29 (1): 19–25. doi:10.2307/40093803. JSTOR 40093803.
- ^ a b "Vietnamese Literature". http://thanglong.ece.jhu.edu/Tho+/Hanmactu/hanmactu.html. Retrieved 31 March 2011>.
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