 | The works of Li Po, the Chinese poet |  |
I
At the early dawn of medieval Europe China had
reached the noontide of her civilization. Indeed, the
three hundred years of the Tang dynasty beginning with
the seventh century witnessed a most brilliant era of
culture and refinement, unsurpassed in all the annals
of the Middle Kingdom. And the greatest of all the
artistic attainments of this period was in literature, and
particularly in poetry. There were no dramatists; no
romancers; but only poets—and poets there were galore.
"In this age," remarks a native critic, "whoever was
a man, was a poet." And this is not satire. The
"Anthology of the Tang Dynasty" consists of nine hundred
Books and contains more than forty-eight thousand
nine hundred poems by no less than two thousand
three hundred poets. Moreover, since this collection
was compiled as late as the eighteenth century by order
of a Manchu emperor, it represents only a meager crop
from a field that had suffered the ruthless ravages of
time for fully a thousand years. Imagine, then, the
vast efflorescence of what must have been veritably a
tropic jungle of poesy!
Now a person may consider it no distinction to be
counted one among these poets when the list is so large;
but to be picked out as the greatest of them all—as the
leader of this colossal army of immortals, is certainly
a singular distinction and honor. And this honor falls
as the greatest poet under the Tangs, and of
China of all times. "He is the lofty peak of Tai," proclaims
an admirer, "towering above ten thousand mountains
and hills; he is the sun in whose presence a million
stars of heaven lose their scintillating splendor."
Before attempting to follow the poet's career in detail,
let us take a glance at China as it was under the
Tang dynasty, especially under the famous emperor
Hsuan Tsung, who was one time patron to Li Po, and
whose long and illustrious reign, ending with his tragic
fall, marks the golden age of Chinese poetry.
| The works of Li Po, the Chinese poet | |