Abstract
The article explores the introduction of Chiese poetry to Europe in 18th and 19th centuries with special interest in the way the language and style of Chinese poetry was discussed. It discusses in some detail early Jesuit translations (Amiot), and books by John F.
Davis, and Marquis Hervey de Saint-Denys. Observations by the early authors about linguistic and stylistic complexity of Chinese poetry is contrasted with the admiration of poets (first among them Goethe) about the naturallness and simplicity of Chinese poetry, which eentually culminated in the modernist reading of certain type of Chinese poetry.
On the background of historical understanding of Chinese poetry the problem of the understandning of this subject is discussed and lack of access to the essential dimension of Chinese poetry - its intertextuality and abundance of allusions - is presented.