Tang poetry

Tang poetry (traditional Chinese: 唐詩; simplified Chinese: 唐诗; pinyin: Táng shī) refers to poetry written in or around the time of and in the characteristic style of China's Tang dynasty, (June 18, 618 - June 4, 907, including the 690-705 reign of Wu Zetian) and/or follows a certain style, often considered as the Golden Age of Chinese poetry. According to a compilation, the Quantangshi, created under the Kangxi emperor of the Qing Dynasty, there were almost 50,000 Tang poems written by over 2,200 authors.[1] During the Tang Dynasty, poetry continued to be an important part of social life at all levels of society. Scholars were required to master poetry for the civil service examinations, but the art was theoretically available to everyone.[2] This led to a large record of poetry and poets, a partial record of which survives today. Two of the most famous poets of the period were Du Fu and Li Bai.[3]

Contents

The Importance of Tang Poetry

The poetry of the Tang Dynasty is important for several reasons. It is important in the field of Chinese literature and Chinese poetry, within which it has had especial note. Tang poetry has had an on-going influence on world literature and modern and quasi-modern poetry. Furthermore, because of the prevalence of rhymed and parallel structures within Tang poetry, it has a role in linguistics studies and the study of the development of Modern Chinese, in its various forms.

The Pre-Tang Poetic Tradition

The poetic tradition inherited by the Tang poets was immense and diverse. By the time of the Tang Dynasty, there was already a continuous Chinese body of poetry dating back for over a thousand years. Indeed, Chinese poetry may well embody more material and recognize a longer tradition than any other type of world literature.[4] Such works as the Chu Ci and Shijing were by no means the only major influences on Tang poetry. In fact, Burton Watson characterizes the poetry of the Sui and early Tang as "a mere continuation of Six Dynasties genres and styles"[5].

History of Tang poetry

The Tang Dynasty covers a time period of many major social and probably linguistic upheavals. Thus, the genre may be divided into several major more-or-less chronological divisions, based on developmental stages or stylistic groupings (sometimes even on personal friendships between poets). It should be remembered that poets may be somewhat arbitrarily assigned to these based on their presumed biographical dates (not always known); furthermore that the lifetimes of poets toward the beginning or end of this period may overlap with the preceding Sui Dynasty or the succeeding Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period. The chronology of Tang poetry may be divided into four parts: Beginning Tang, Flourishing Tang, Middle Tang, and Late Tang.

Beginning Tang

See also: Six dynasties poetry

In Beginning Tang (初唐), the earliest poets to develop the foundation what is now considered to be the Tang style of poetry inherited a rich and deep literary and poetic tradition, or several traditions. The Beginning Tang poetry is subdivided into early, middle and late phases.

Flourishing Tang

In Flourishing Tang (盛唐), sometimes known as High Tang or Golden Tang, first appear the poets which would come to mind as Tang poets, at least in the United States and Europe. Flourishing Tang poetry had numerous schools of thought:

Middle Tang

The poets of the Middle Tang (中唐) period also include many of the best known names, and they wrote some very famous poems. This was a time of rebuilding and recovery, but also high taxes, official corruption, and lesser greatness. Li Bo's bold seizing of the old forms and turning them to new and contemporary purposes and Du Fu's development of the formal style of poetry, though hard to equal, and perhaps impossible to surpass, nevertheless provided a firm edifice on which the Middle Tang poets could build.

Late Tang

In Late Tang (晚唐), as at the full flourishing of Tang poetry, there was the pair Li Bo and Du Fu, known, by a combination of their names, as Li-Du (李杜), so in the twilight of the Late Tang there was a Little Li-Du (小李杜): Du Mu (杜牧803-852) and Li Shangyin (李商隱/李商隐, 812 or 813-858). These two typified the two divergent poetic streams of the times.

Continuation of Tang Poetry in Southern Tang

After the official fall of the Tang Dynasty in 907, some members of its ruling house of Li managed to find refuge in the south of China, where their descendants founded the Southern Tang Dynasty in the year 937. This dynasty continued many of the traditions of the former great Tang Dynasty, including poetry, until its official fall in 975, and the captivity of its ruler. Importantly for the history of poetry, this ruler Li Yu survived another three years as a prisoner of the Song Dynasty, from which time some of his best known works date, written in the true Tang style. Thus, including this "afterglow of the T'ang Dynasty", the final date for the Tang Poetry era can be considered to be at the death of Li Yu, in 978.[10]

Tang Poetry After the Fall of the Tang Dynasty

Surviving the turbulent decades of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms era, Tang poetry was perhaps the major influence on the poetry of the Song Dynasty, for example seeing such major poets as Su Shi creating new works based upon matching lines of Du Fu's.[11] This matching style is known from the Late Tang. Pi Rixiu and Lu Guimeng, sometimes known as Pi-Lu, were well known for it: one would write a poem with a certain style and rhyme scheme, then the other would reply with a different poem, but matching the style and with the same rhymes. This allows for subtleties which can only be grasped by matching the poems together.

Succeeding eras have seen the popularity of various Tang poets wax and wane. The Qing Dynasty saw the publication of the massive compilation of the collected Tang poems, the Quantangshi, as well as the less-scholarly (for example, no textual variants are given), but more popular, Three Hundred Tang Poems. In China, some of the poets, such as Li Bo and Du Fu have never fallen into obscurity; others, such as Li Shangyin, have had modern revivals. Outside of China, and cultural neighborhood, recent centuries have seen major influence upon poetry around the world, including through translations or through some sort of general impression of Tang poetry.

English Translators of Tang Poetry

English Translators of Tang poetry include Herbert Giles, L. Cranmer-Byng, Archie Barnes, Amy Lowell, Arthur Waley, A. C. Graham, Shigeyoshi Obata, Burton Watson, Gary Snyder, David Hinton, Wai-lim Yip, and Red Pine (Bill Porter): all considered more-or-less fair translations. In the Nineteenth Century, Ernest Fenollosa, wrote up some notes toward translating Chinese poetry, indirectly through the Japanese, including some Li Bo poems, which were later adapted by Ezra Pound and published in his book Cathay: the results, although of some influence on poetry, do not meet the minimum criteria of a translation, in terms of fidelity to the original text (an interesting anecdote in this respect is that Robert Graves says, "I once asked Arthur Waley how much Chinese Pound knew; Waley shook his head despondently."[12]).

Characteristics of Tang Poetry

Tang poetry has certain characteristics. Contextually, the fact that the poems were generally intended to be recited in more-or-less contemporary spoken Chinese (now known as Classical Chinese; or, sometimes, as Literary Chinese, in post-Han Dynasty cases) and that the poems were written in Chinese characters are certainly important. Also important are the use of certain typical poetic forms, various common themes, and the surrounding social and natural milieu.

Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism in Relationship to Tang Poetry

The Tang dynasty time was one of religious ferment, which was reflected in the poetry. Many of the poets were religiously devout. Also, at that time religion tended to have an intimate relation with poetry.

Gender Studies and Tang Poetry

There has been some interest in Tang poetry in the field of gender studies. Although most of the poets were men, there were several significant women. Also, many of the men wrote from the viewpoint of a woman, or lovingly of other men. Historically and geographically localized in Tang Dynasty China, this is an area which has not escaped interest from the perspective of historical gender roles.

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Chey, 139, accessed July 17, 2008
  2. ^ Jing, 256, accessed July 20, 2008
  3. ^ Hoyt, 27, accessed July 20, 2008
  4. ^ Hinton, xix
  5. ^ Watson, 109
  6. ^ zh.wikipedia "唐诗" (most of this section is adapted from there, along with dates from the linked articles on individual poets)
  7. ^ zh.wikipedia "唐诗" (most of this section is adapted from there, along with dates from the linked articles on individual poets)
  8. ^ zh.wikipedia "唐诗" (most of this section is adapted from there, along with dates from the linked articles on individual poets)
  9. ^ zh.wikipedia "唐诗" (most of this section is adapted from there, along with dates from the linked articles on individual poets)
  10. ^ Wu, 190 and chapter on Li Yu 211-221
  11. ^ Murck, passim
  12. ^ Graves, from "These Be Your Gods, O Israel" (138-139)

References

External links

This article incorporates information from this version of the equivalent article on the Chinese Wikipedia.