Classical poetry master advises students to chant poems for better understanding
Without chanting, poetry would be dry knowledge. All you can do is to memorize it mechanically, but unable to write your own poem, said Yeh Chia-ying, a renowned Chinese classical poetry scholar.
"It is regrettable to see we don't chant poems anymore. To have a deep understanding of the true beauty of poems, we need to combine the pronunciation. I read poems with a tune. No one taught me to do so and my families never did so. I just wanted to do it myself. However, teachers will not chant poems at class nowadays," said Yeh.
Yeh always pays attention to poetry education of children. She compiled a book "Classical Poems for Children," which has a collection of 218 poems and verses. She said her only criteria for the entries is whether children can understand them and help arouse interest to read them.
For better poetry education in schools and colleges, she asked teachers to improve their literature attainment first.
"Teachers should be accomplished enough to have a real and vivid understanding of poems. If teachers cannot understand, all they can do is just explaining the poem literally, though this is already a good thing," said Yeh.
Yeh had been invited to serve as professors by many universities, including Harvard, Yale and Columbia. Yeh returned to China in 1977 and started lecturing college students on Chinese literature and poetry in 1979.