Poems of the Late T'ang
Sign in to keep track of books you’ve read and want to read.
Classical Chinese poetry reached its pinnacle during the T'ang Dynasty (618-907 A.D.), and the poets of the late T'ang-a period of growing political turmoil and violence-are especially notable for combining strking formal inovation with raw emotional intensity. A. C. Graham's slim but indispensable anthology of late T'ang poetry begins with Tu Fu, commonly recognized as the greatest Chinese poet of all, whose final poems and sequences lament the pains of exile in images of crystalline strangeness. It continues with the work of six other masters, including the "cold poet" Meng Chiao, who wrote of retreat from civilization to the remoteness of the high mountains; the troubled and haunting Li Ho, who, as Graham writes, cultivated a "wholly personal imagery of ghosts, blood, dying animals, weeping statues, whirlwinds, the will-o'-the-wisp"; and the shimmeringly strange poems of illicit love and Taoist initiation of the enigmatic Li Shang-yin. Offering the largest selection of these poets' work available in English in a translation that is a classic in its own right, Poems of the Late T'angalso includes Graham's searching essay "The Translation of Chinese Poetry" as well as helpful notes on each of the poets and on many of the individual poems.
Liked Poems of the Late T'ang? Here’s where I’d start.
These suit anyone who liked Poems of the Late T'ang. Sign in and mark a few books for picks shaped around your own taste.
-
Classical Chinese Poetry: An Anthology Shares poetry, China, chinese -
Cold Mountain: One Hundred Poems by the T'Ang Poet Han-Shan Shares poetry, China, chinese -
The Book of Songs: The Ancient Chinese Classic of Poetry Shares poetry, China, chinese literature -
Women Poets of China Shares poetry, China, chinese poetry
