Preface

The Chinese culture，broad and profound，has a long history．The Chinese language，which reflects the Chinese culture，has also gone through thousands of years of tempering and polishing and got closer and closer to the summit．Currently，about 1.5 billion people throughout the world speak Chinese，which tops the lists of all kinds of language speakers．The profoundness of the Chinese language，the artistic characters as well as its beautiful rhythms make many people infatuated with them．Up to now，Chinese，as China’s official language，can be directly used in diplomatic situations without being translated into other languages．As a large nation，China has become more and more influential in today’s world，which gives rise to the ever rising position of the Chinese language．Many foreign universities offer Chinese courses and even set up Chinese departments．Learning Chinese becomes more and more popular all over the world.

It is not easy to learn Chinese．One of the difficulties is to comprehend the citations from famous poems．However，in order to improve his comprehension of Chinese and his writing level，one should make efforts to learn those most famous and most frequently cited ancient poems.

Meanwhile，with the growing importance of international communication，the Chinese people’s enthusiasm for learning foreign languages is waxing fast．The English interpretation of ancient Chinese poems is also very difficult in introducing the Chinese culture to the world and translating the Chinese language into other languages.

In light of the above analysis，we selected 100 poems from the sea of the ancient Chinese poems after full and careful consideration and weighting．These 100 representative poems，with distinctive epochal characteristics，are the most popular and most frequently quoted ones．In this book，each poem is explained in detail．The introduction of the author and the analysis of the poem are given in both English and Chinese．Therefore，this book can help foreign Chinese learners gain a better understanding of the ancient Chinese poems，improve their Chinese proficiency and understand more deeply the essence of the Chinese culture．At the same time，it offers a good opportunity for Chinese readers to learn poems as well as English．In addition，for those who have dealings with foreigners or work in tourism services，it can assist them in improving their ability to introduce the Chinese culture in English．We believe that readers who read only the Chinese part of the book can also benefit a lot because the book provides detailed and in-depth explanation in Chinese．One point we would like to make is that ancient poems are only a small part of the Chinese ancient literature．Other forms such as prose，ci，qu and fu are not incorporated in this book．We hope that in the future we have the opportunity to introduce them.

In this book，the poems are arranged according to the birth dates of the authors．The introduction of each poem includes the following parts：the background of the author in both Chinese and English，the poem in both Chinese and English；explanation of the words and sentences in Chinese，explanation and analysis of the whole poem in both Chinese and English.

We are willing to try our utmost to introduce the Chinese culture to the world，to help people both at home and abroad learn the Chinese language，to improve communication and understanding，and to promote cooperation and friendship between China and the rest of the world.

The Authors and Translators