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Page 1: Poets of the Tang Dynasty: Li Po,

Poets of the Tang Dynasty:Li Po, Tu Fu, Han-shan, Han Yu, Bo JuyiFlorence Chan

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LiBo_DuFu.ppt

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Outline 1. Li Po/ Li Bo 2. Du Fu 3. Han Shan 4. han Yu 5. Bo Juyi

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Modern-style Poetry in the Tang Dynasty In the Tang dynasty, technically stricter forms of shi were developed. These are collectively referred to as jinti shi 近體詩(modern-style poetry); by contrast, the loose and older forms cam to be called gu(ti)shi 古 ( 體 ) 詩 (ancient-style poetry). The increasing deliberate use of tones as a poetic element led to the development, in the 6th & 7th centuries, of three new subtypes of shi, distinguished primarily on the basis of strict rules governing tone placement. All three are referred to collectively as jinti shi 近體詩 (modern-style poetry).

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The Forms of Modern-style Poetry 1. jueju ( 絕句 ), stopped short lines. It consists of 4 lines, usually of 5 or 7 characters. If the 7-syllable line is used, the 1st line usually rhymes with the 2nd and 4th . Later critics assigned a function to each of the four lines of a jueju: opening development, roundabout, and conclusion.

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The Forms of Modern-style Poetry 2. lushi ( 律詩 ), regulated poem. It has eight lines of 5 or 7 characters. The two internal couplets (i.e., line 3&4; 5&6) must show paralleism, a fact which often makes this form immediately recognizble even in trnaslation. In the opening couplet, parallelism is allowed but is seldom used in practice. Change of rhyme is not allowed in the regulated poems.

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The Forms of Modern-style Poetry 3. pailu, linked regulated If more than two parallel couplets intervene between the opening and closing couplets, the poem is said to belong to the linked regulated type. Linked regulated poems of 30-40 couplets are not uncommon, but in this type, too, change of rhyme is avoided as ,much as possible.

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Li Po/ Li Bo 李白 (701-762) Li Bo would probably be close to the top on almost anyone’s list of the greatest Chinese poets of pre-modern times. It is generally agreed that he and Du Fu 杜甫 raised poetry in the shi ( 詩 ) form to the highest level of power and expressiveness; later poets at times approached but never surpassed them.

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Li Bo (701-762) It was some centuries before the true

worth of Du Fu’s work was acknowledged, but Li Bo’s poetry seems to have gained almost immediate recognition.

This may due to the fact that, unlike Du Fu, Li Bo was no innovator.

For the most part he was content to employ the poetic forms inherited from his predecessors and to devote himself to the conventional themes of the past.

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Li Bo (701-762) Of the 1000 poems attributed to him, about one sixth are in the yuefu ballad style, which means that they are reworking of themes drawn from the old folk song tradition, while another group of his poems is entitled gufeng ( 古風 ) or “in the old manner.” Li Bo’s distinction lies in the fact that he brought an unparalleled grace and eloquence to his treatment of the traditional themes, a flow that lift his work far above the level of mere imitations of the past.

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Li Bo (701-762) Another characteristic of Li Bo’s poetry is the air of playfulness and outright fantasy that infuses much of it. The poem, “My trip in a Dream to the Lady of Heaven Mountain” is a good example, a work in irregular form that in rhapsodic language describes a dream journey to Tianmu, a mountain on the Zhejing coast associated with Taoist lore. After the poet awakes, he resolves to leave the world of fawning and hypocrisy and retire to the mountains, the carefree life of the recluse being another important theme in his poetry. Other works stress the poet’s unique rapport with nature, or his love of wine.

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The Life of Li Bo (701-762) Though a wealth of legend has accrued about Li Bo’s name, little is known of the facts of his life. His birthplace was uncertain. He grew up in Sichuan 四川 in western China and later traveled extensively in the eastern and central regions. Just what kept him so constantly on the move is difficult to say, since his poetry, unlike Du Fu and many other major Chinese poets, tends to be impersonal in tone and to reveal relatively little about the poet’s own activities.

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The Life of Li Bo (701-762) Around 742, he gained recognition from the Emperor Xuanzong 唐明皇 and was appointed to a post in Hanlin Academy, in the government office charged with literary activities. But a few years later, he was exiled from the capital as a result of slanders. He fled south at the time of An Lushan 安祿山 rebellion in 755 and in time entered the service of Prince Yong, a member of the imperial family who was later accused of treason.

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The Writing Style of Li Bo The prince’s downfall involved Li Bo’s

second exile, though he was eventually pardoned and resumed his life of wandering.

In spite of his misfortune, Li Bo is little given to expressions of unmitigated despair or bitterness, his poetry on the whole being unusually calm, even at times sunny in outlook.

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The Writing Style of Li Bo It appears to grow not so much out of

actual scenes and experiences of his lifetime as it does out of certain convictions that he held regarding life and art, out of a tireless search for spiritual freedom and communion with nature, a lively imagination and a deep sensitivity to the beauties of language.

Comparable to Mozart: terrible life in the world (once well-received but later disliked by the king) vs. happy artwork

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Li Bo: “Still Night Thoughts” This poem used to be known by all

Chinese schoolchildren.

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Li Bo: Poems on Wine We may note that for Li Bo and many others, losing oneself in drink provided a means of blurring the distinctions imposed by the human mind, so that the loneliness of individuality might give way to a comforting sense of identity with the eternal order. Li Bo’s yuefu poems are studded with golden goblets sloshing with wine, with singing, dancing, and eating. The fourth is the most famous of them. The Chinese poetic tradition had no lack of drinking poems, but never had there been one before that spoke to its audience with such violent energy.

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II. Du Fu 杜甫 (712-770) Du Fu is generally known as the

sage of poetry. His poems reflect his concern for his

country and his love for sovereign, his compassion for the times and his sadness over disorder, his refusal to compromise in adversity, and his integrity in poverty.

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Du Fu (712-770) If the poetry of Li Bo conveys a feeling

of spontaneity and effortless flow, that of his contemporary Du Fu gives a quite different impression.

Though Du Fu wrote in a variety of styles, his most characteristic work is innovative in language and subject matter and densely packed with meaning.

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Du Fu (712-770) Du Fu seems to have labored over his

compositions, employing parallelisms and other rhetorical and prosodic devices in novel and surprising ways, striving to open up new areas of expression.

His professed aim being to startle with the creativeness of his work.

This is undoubtedly one reason why his importance was not widely recognized by the readers of his time, for his work was too original and innovative for the mass.

As in the case of so many artists whose work is experimental and forward-looking, it remained for posterity to recognize the full extent of his genius.

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The Life of Du Fu (712-770) Du Fu was born in Henan in the region

of Luoyang. Though he came from a distinguished

literary family and had influential contacts, his early efforts to secure a governmental position through the examination system or special appointment met with repeated failure.

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The Life of Du Fu (712-770) He was 43 when, in 755, he finally succeeded in obtaining an official post. It was anything but a suspicious time to enter the service of the dynasty. Emperor Xuanzong 唐明皇 , a distinguished and able ruler in his earlier years, had in his sixties become infatuated with the beautiful Yang Guifei 楊貴妃 , making her his concubine and showing favors on her relations, a move that Du Fu obliquely censures in his “Song of the Beautiful Ladies.”

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The Life of Du Fu (712-770) With the emperor thus distracted from affairs of state, the court soon became plagued by factionalism and the military leaders in the outlying areas grew dangerously powerful. In 755, the year of Du Fu took office, one such leader with his base in the northeast, An Lushan, raised a revolt and began marching toward the Tang capital area. In time the emperor was forced to flee to the west and abdicate in favor of his son, who set up a new regime. Meanwhile, Du Fu and his family fled north to escape the rebel armies.

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The Life of Du Fu (712-770) He then left his family there and he himself attempted to make his way to the headquarters of the new emperor, but was captured by the rebels and held prisoner in Chang’an 長安 . After a semblance of order had been restored, Du Fu was once more given a post in the capital, but incurred the emperor’s displeasure and was removed to a minor provincial position. In 759 he left this post and spent the remainder of his life in restless wanderings, broken by an interval of relative tranquility when he lived on the outskirts of Chengdu in Sichuan.

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The Life of Du Fu (712-770) In his last years, much troubled by

illness, he journeyed by stages down in the Yangtze, attempting to reach his old home in the east, but died along the way.

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The Writing Style of Du Fu Much of Du Fu’s poetry is intensely personal,

we can follow in it the tortured course of his life as it was molded by the numerous events of the time.

He was imbued with a strong Confucian sense of duty that kept him striving to serve the dynasty to which he professed such deep loyalty. He just hoped to help the ills of the nation.

As a government official, he proved in his terms in office to be well-meaning but ineffectual.

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The Writing Style of Du Fu In a large sense, however, he fulfilled his

moral purpose through his art, in his poems describing in moving terms the grief that famine, misrule, and civil unrest were inflicting upon himself and his countrymen.

His greatest works are at once a lament upon the appalling sorrows that he saw around him, and a reproach to those, who, through folly or ignorance, were to some degree responsible for the creation of such misery.

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The Writing Style of Du Fu It is no doubt this deeply sincere and

compassionate tone in his work that led later ages to bestow on him as the Sage of Poetry, acknowledging him the artistic counterpart of Confucius himself.

Unlike Li Bo, who preferred the relative freedom of the old style verse forms, Du Fu welcomed the technical demands made by the “modern style” or tonally regulated forms, particularly the eight-line regulated verse.

Of his approximately 1450 extant poems, over 1000 are in such forms.

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The Writing Style of Du Fu This fact, along with the great

compression of language and thought that marks many of his works, makes his poetry particularly difficult to translate.

One should keep in mind that many of the beauties of language that Chinese readers admire so greatly in his work inevitably are lost in translation.

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Du Fu, “Spring View” A perfect example of a penta-syllabic poem in Regulated Verse. The rules of Regulated Verse :1. The poem must be one of eight lines in four couplets2. The two middle couplets (lines 3-4, 5-6) must each be antithetically arranged. i.e. line 4 must parallel line 3 in both grammar and meaning, line 6 must parallel line 5 in the same way.

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Du Fu, “Spring View”- However, great poets do not

always bother about the rules quite as much as their admirers and imitators.

- In this poem, not only the middle couplets, but the first couplets, too, contain verbal parallelism.

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Du Fu, “A Guest Arrives” This poem was written when Du Fu

was living on the outskirts of Chengdu.

At that time, he left this post and spent the remainder of his life in restless wanderings.

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Du Fu, “A Traveler at Night Writes His Thoughts” It was written in 765 A.D.

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III. Han-shan 寒山 “Hanshan” in Chinese means “Cold Mountain,” takes his name from where he lived. He is a mountain madman in an old Chinese line of ragged hermits. When he talks about Cold Mountain he means himself, his home, his state of mind. He lived in the Tang dynasty, traditionally 627-650, though Hu Shi dates him 700-780. This makes him roughly contemporary with Du Fu, Li Bo, Wang Wei and Bo Juyi.

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The Writing Style of Han-shan His poems, of which 300 survive, are written in Tang colloquial: rough and fresh. The ideas are Daoist, Buddhist, Zen. Hanshan is exceptional in Chinese history as most scholars/poets were Confucians, as they all went through Confucian training where they were studying for the public exam.

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IV.Han Yu 韓愈 (768-824) Many of the Mid Tang poets began deliberately working back toward a freer, looser, more colloquial diction and syntax (after the extreme refinement and density of the late Du Fu). One of the most important leaders was Han Yu, also famous as a Confucian thinker and creator of guwen ( 古文 ), or old prose style. His efforts to introduce reforms both in prose and in poetic style were in many ways motivated by the same ideals.

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The Life of Han Yu (768-824) Known as the “Prince of Literature,” and

generally regarded as the most striving figure in the Chinese world of letters, he ranks high as a poet, essayist, and philosopher.

In official life, he got himself into trouble by his outspoken attacks upon Buddhism, at that time very fashionable at court, and was banished to the then barbarous south, where he gained great kudos by his wise and incorrupt administration.

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The Writing style of Han Yu In prose he sought to break away from the

parallel prose style, with its extreme attention to formal regularity and rhetorical flourish, and to substitute a style embodying the simplicity, naturalness, and respect for speech rhythms that had characterized the writings of the ancients.

In poetry he made a similar effort to do away with contrived diction, to restore freshness to the language of the poem and to encourage greater freedom of form and expression.

At the same time he attempted to broaden the subject matter of poetry and to introduce a more openly philosophical note.

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Han Yu, “In Mermoriam—1” This is written in memory of the

author’s cousin, tells its own tale, coupled with several interesting details of the writer’s own life.

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V. Bo Juyi 白居易 / Po chuyi (772-846) Bo Juyi’s childhood was spent in Henan. He tells us that his family was poor and often in difficulties. Thus, he knows the sufferings of the common people. Soon after settling in Chang’an, he met Yuan Zhen, then aged 22, who was destined to play so important a part in his life. In 804 on the death of his father, and again in 811 on the death of his mother, he spent periods of retirement on the Wei river near Chang’an.

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The Life of Bo Juyi In 808-9, he criticizes the King’s agreement to

receive extra tax from government officials. After a drought, he fights for a deduction in tax.

After years opposing the King’s decisions, he fell into official disfavor in the winter of 814.

He had criticized the handling of a campaign against an unimportant tribe of Tartars, which he considered had been unduly prolonged.

In a series of poems he had satirized the rapacity of minor officials and called attention to the intolerable sufferings of the masses.

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The Life of Bo Juyi His enemies soon found an opportunity of silencing him. He was banished to Jiujiang with the rank of Sub-Prefect. After 3 years, he was given the Governorship of Zhongzhou, a remote place in Sichuan. On the way up the Yangtze he met Yuan Zhen again after three years of separation. In the winter of 819 he was recalled to the capital and became a second-class Assistant Secretary.

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The Life of Bo Juyi In 821 the Emperor Muzong came to the throne. His arbitrary mis-government soon caused a fresh rising in the northwest. Juyi remonstrated in a series of memorials and was again removed from the capital—this time to be Governor of the important town of Hangzhou. His best friend, Yuan Zhen (who was also a famous writer) now held a judicial post at Ningbo, and the two were occasionally able to meet.

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The Life of Bo Juyi In 824 his Governorship expired and he went to live

in Luoyang. In 825 he became Governor of Suzhou. Here at the age of 53, he enjoyed a kind of second

youth, much more sociable than that of 30 years before; we find him endlessly picnicking and feasting.

But after 2 years illness obliged him to retire. He next held various posts in the capital, but again

he fell ill, and in 829 settled at Luoyang as Governor of Henan.

His first son was born but died in the following year. In 831 Yuan Zhen died.

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The Life of Bo Juyi Henceforth, though for 13 years, he continued to hold nominal posts, he lived a life of retirement. In 832 he repaired an unoccupied part of the Xiangshan Monastery at Longmen, and lived there, calling himself the Hermit of Xiangshan (Fragrant Mountain). In the winter of 839 he was attacked by paralysis and lost the use of his left leg.

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The Life of Bo Juyi After many months in bed he was again able to visit his garden carried by Ruman, a favorite monk. He died in 846, leaving instructions that his funeral should be without pomp and that he should be buried not in the family tomb, but by Ruman’s side in the Xiangshan Monastery.

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The Writing Style of Bo Juyi The characteristic of Bo’s poetry is its

verbal simplicity. This is a story that he was in the habit

of reading his poems to an old peasant woman and altering any expression which she could not understand.

The poems of his contemporaries were mere diversions which enabled the scholar to display his erudition.

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The Writing Style of Bo Juyi Bo expounded his theory of poetry in a letter to

Yuan Zhen. Like Confucius, he regarded art solely as a

method of conveying instruction. It is obvious that much of his best poetry conveys

no moral whatsoever, though many of his poems reflect social problems in a sarcastic manner.

He admits that among his “miscellaneous stanzas” many were inspired by some momentary sensation or passing event. “A single laugh or a single sign were rapidly translated into verse.”

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Bo Juyi: “The Charcoal-Seller” A poor but diligent man struggling at the

border of life/death. Reflects the problem of heavy taxation in the

Tong Dynasty. Though the seller does not have enough

clothing, he wish the weather is cold than warm.

However, he cannot argue with the government person, the yellow-massager.

Contrast is frequent in Bo’s poems, “yellow-massager vs. the white-shirt”

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Bo Juyi: “A Song of Unbending Sorrow”- Bo’s earliest famous work, a popular poem, “nobles, officials, women, concubines and cowboys talk about it.”- The love story between King Tong ming and his concubine, Princess of Yang.- Bo does not describe them as historical heroes but a pair of lovers struggling for love.

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Bo Juyi: “A Song of Unbending Sorrow” Beginning: King Tong Ming forgets all official

duties after he meets Princess of Yang. All Princess Yang’s relatives are in power. Because the King does not rule the state well,

some barbarous tribes invade the country. Both the King and the Princess have to fled

from the palace. The warriors are reluctant to fight till the King

announced the death of Princess Yang. The King gets back his country but is very

unhappy about the death of Princess Yang.

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Bo Juyi: “A Song of Unbending Sorrow” Daoist priests are touched by the King’s love and they eventually find Princess Yang in some “fairy mountains.” Princess Yang also conveys her endless love for King Tong Ming. Their wish: “We wished to fly in heaven, two birds with the wings of one, and to grow together on the earth, two branches of one tree.” The poem, however, does not end happily: “Earth endures, heaven endures; sometime both shall end, while this unending sorrow goes on and on for ever.”

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Reflections on “A Song of Unbending Sorrow” Romantic descriptions of the fairy land. Beautifully descriptions of Princess Yang’s beauty: “If she but turned her head and smiled, there were cast a hundred spells, And the powder and paint of the Six Palace faded into nothing.” Her sadness when she is founded by the Daoist priests: “And the tear-drops drifting down her sad white face, Were like a rain in spring on the blossom of the pear.” Her sad view of the palace she used to live in: “But when she turned her face and looked down toward the earth, And tried to see the capital there were only fog and dust.”