Socialist Republic of Vietnam

John Balaban, professor of English and poet-in-residence at North Carolina University, will read from “Spring Essence: The Poetry of Hồ Xuân Hương,” at noon on Thursday, Dec. 2, in Room LJ-119 of the Thomas Jefferson Building, 101 Independence Ave. S.E., Washington, D.C. The event, which is sponsored by the Asian Division, the John W. Kluge Center in the Library of Congress and the Library of Congress Asian American Association is free and open to the public. Tickets are not required.
Edited and translated by Balaban and published in 2000 by Copper Canyon Press, “Spring Essence” is a collection of 49 poems by Hồ Xuân Hương, (1775-1820) one of Vietnam’s most celebrated poets, whose name translates as the book’s title. Its publication marks the first time that any writing in the ancient language of Nôm has been published using movable type rather than woodblock printing.
Hồ Xuân Hương was a concubine at the end of the second Lý Dynasty ((1428-1788)), a period of calamity and social disintegration in Vietnam. She followed Chinese classical styles in her poetry, but her poems were anything but conventional. At a time when impropriety was punished by the sword, her work was imbued with sexual innuendos. Through her writing, she ridiculed the authority of the decaying Buddhist church, the feudal state and Confucian society. She preferred to write in Nôm, a language that faded after the French invasion of Vietnam in the 17th century.

Balaban will be joined by Southeast Asian area specialist Liên Hương Fiedler, who will read selections from “Spring Essence.” Ngô Thanh Nhàn, a linguist at the New York University’s Courant Institute of Mathematical Science, will play the traditional 16-string đàn tranh as well as discuss his work using the computer to preserve the vast tradition of Vietnamese writing in Nôm. Since 1992 Nhàn has been developing a system for computers to read and display Nôm, a calligraphic writing system devised in 1000 A.D. to represent the Chinese-like script of spoken Vietnamese. Only a few dozen people in the world today can read or write Nôm. As a result of Nhàn’s work, Nôm documents can be scanned by an optical character recognition device and translated into Quốc-Ngữ (national script). It can then be printed out and translated into English. When Nôm is fully digitized, nearly 1,000 years of Vietnamese culture will be accessible.

The Library’s Asian Division holds a collection of nearly 2 million books, periodicals, newspapers, manuscripts and microforms, which is among the most significant assemblage of such materials outside of Asia. The collection includes a number of important works in Nôm, including original poems by Hồ Xuân Hương and a copy of “Kim Vân Kiều,” the most significant work by Nguyễn Du (1765-1820), who is considered to be Vietnam’s “national poet.” The Asian Division also holds more than 30 books in various languages about the poet Hồ Xuân Hương.

Through a generous endowment from John W. Kluge, the Library of Congress established the Kluge Center in 2000 to bring together the world’s best thinkers to distill wisdom from the Library’s rich resources and to stimulate and energize interaction with policymakers in Washington. The Kluge Center houses five senior Kluge Chairs, other senior-level chairs and nearly 25 postdoctoral fellows. For more information about the fellowships, grants and programs offered by the John W. Kluge Center at the Library of Congress, visit the center’s Web site at www.loc.gov/kluge.