snowynight

Tang Dynasty is considered the golden period of classical Chinese poetry. Li Bai & Du Fu were particularly the superstars of Chinese poetry. Poets born after them have received less attention, but they also inherited and innovated the poetry tradition. Here I would like to cover several poets in the mid/late Tang Dynasty: Han Yu (768 – 824), Meng Jiao (751–814), Li He (c. 790–791 – c. 816–817), Liu Zongyuan (773-819) & Li Shangyin (813-858).

History Background

The start of the mid-Tang Dynasty was marked by the the catastrophic events of the An Lushan Rebellion. Even the emperor had to flee from the capital. The rebellion lasted 8 years, causing huge loss in population, and fragmentation of China. Autonomous regional authorities headed by regional military commanders became virtually independent. Frequent wars with neighboring countries, the rise of eunuchs who later controlled royal successions and the general economic decline plagued the Tang Dynasty to its end in 907. It was hard for intellectuals without connection to find a living. Han Yu, Meng Jiao, Li He & Li Shangyin all suffered from this problem.
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Meng Jiao

Meng Jiao was the oldest out of the mid-Tang poets. 500 of his poems existed to this day, all in 5-syllable gushi (lit. ancient style poems). He was a hermit and only started attending the imperial exam at about 40 under his mother's request. His poetry is noted for the unusual forcefulness and harshness. Comtemporaies praised his poetry highly and considered him an equal to Han Yu. Han Yu once wrote a poem comparing themselves to two dragons. They also collaborated and wrote ten long poems

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Han Yu

Han Yu was an essayist, Confucian scholar, poet, and government official during the Tang dynasty. Orphaned at birth, he was raised by his elder brother and sister-in-law. When he was seven, his elder brother was exiled and died three years later. His childhood as an orphan, struggle to support his clan in his middle years and exiles shaped his writing.
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Liu Zongyuan

Liu Zongyuan was a Chinese philosopher, poet, and politician. Along with Han Yu, he was a founder of the Classical Prose Movement. He has been traditionally classed as one of the "Eight Great Prose Masters of the Tang and Song".
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Li He

What we knew about Li He mainly came from "The Short Biography of Li He" written by Li Shangyin. He was described as a diligent poet, who carried an old brocade bag around with him, and when a line of poetry came to him he would jot it down and put it in this bag. Then he completed the poems when he arrived home in the evening. His mother often said, "My son has given his heart and blood to poetry." When he died at 27, a scarlet figure was reported to visit him and told him that Shangdi had summoned him to heaven to write poetry for a new white jade building.
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Li Shangyin

Li Shangyin was a poet famous for his elegant and symbolic poetry. The Niu–Li factional strife was often stressed in his biography, but there wasn't a consensus about his role in the strife and the impact on his unsuccessful career. He was highly rated as a formal, elegant prose writer in his time. Similarly, his poems were densely allusive, rigidly structured and full of beautiful otherworldly imagery. They built a world of grief and longing, with hope always out of reach.
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