i stumble across some chinese poems with their english translations here and am enchanted. there is an aching unrestrained beauty that lurks behind the spare words and almost mundane imagery. the art of not saying is magical within the confines of a few metered lines. when you apply the same principles to a play, or prose, you end up with melodrama*, which is awful.
in a nutshell, this is my relationship to chinese literature. i love the way the poetry paints an entire world by suggestion alone, but i dislike the heavy hand when they expand that world. although for pure agony, you can't beat the russians.
*e.g. thunderstorm, which put me off an entire genre.
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