Tang poetry () refers to poetry written in or around the time of, or 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. The anthology Complete Tang Poems includes over 48,900 poems written by over 2,200 poets. However, with recovered and variant texts and modern archaeological excavations from sites like Dunhuang, the actual number of named Tang poets (and the total number of Tang poems) are much higher, at an estimated 3,700 recorded poets from the Tang dynasty.According to the paper "20世纪唐诗研究的成就与不足" from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences' Chinese Social Sciences Today, this "does not include the hundreds of Tang poems unearthed from porcelain at the Tang Kiln in Changsha, Hunan, in the summer of 1992". 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 exams, but the art was theoretically available to everyone.Jing-Schmidt, 256, accessed July 20, 2008 This led to a large record of poetry and poets, a partial record of which survives today. The two most famous poets of the period were Li Bai and Du Fu. The Qing dynasty selection, Three Hundred Tang Poems, has made Tang poetry familiar to educated Chinese in modern times.
Periodization
The periodization scheme employed in this article is the one detailed by the Ming dynasty scholar Gao Bing (1350–1423) in the preface to his work Tangshi Pinhui, which has enjoyed broad acceptance since his time.Paragraph 3 in Paul W. Kroll "Poetry of the T'ang Dynasty", chapter 14 in Mair 2001. This system, which unambiguously treats poetry composed during the reign of Emperor Xuanzong (the "High Tang" period) as being superior in quality to what came before and after, is subjective and evaluative, and often does not reflect the realities of literary history.Paragraph 4 in Paul W. Kroll "Poetry of the T'ang Dynasty", chapter 14 in Mair 2001.
Forms
The representative form of poetry composed during the Tang dynasty is the shi.Paragraph 1 in Paul W. Kroll "Poetry of the T'ang Dynasty", chapter 14 in Mair 2001. This contrasts to poetry composed in the earlier Han dynasty and later Song and Yuan dynasties, which are characterized by fu, ci and qu forms, respectively. However, the fu continued to be composed during the Tang dynasty, which also saw the beginnings of the rise of the ci form.
Within the shi form, there was a preference for pentasyllabic lines, which had been the dominant metre since the second century C.E., but heptasyllabic lines began to grow in popularity from the eighth century.Paragraph 5 in Paul W. Kroll "Poetry of the T'ang Dynasty", chapter 14 in Mair 2001. The poems generally consisted of multiple rhyming couplets, with no definite limit on the number of lines but a definite preference for multiples of four lines.
Sources The Complete Tang Poems anthology compiled in the early eighteenth century includes over 48,900 poems written by over 2,200 authors.Paragraph 15 in Paul W. Kroll "Poetry of the T'ang Dynasty", chapter 14 in Mair 2001. The Quan Tangwen (全唐文, "Complete Tang Prose"), despite its name, contains more than 1,500 fu and is another widely consulted source for Tang poetry. Despite their names, these sources are not comprehensive, and the manuscripts discovered at Dunhuang in the twentieth century included many shi and some fu, as well as variant readings of poems that were also included in the later anthologies. There are also collections of individual poets' work, which generally can be dated earlier than the Qing anthologies, although few earlier than the eleventh century.Paragraph 16 in Paul W. Kroll "Poetry of the T'ang Dynasty", chapter 14 in Mair 2001. Only about a hundred Tang poets have such collected editions extant.
Another important source is anthologies of poetry compiled during the Tang dynasty, although only thirteen such anthologies survive in full or in part.Paragraph 17 in Paul W. Kroll "Poetry of the T'ang Dynasty", chapter 14 in Mair 2001.
Many records of poetry, as well as other writings, were lost when the Tang capital of Changan was damaged by war in the eighth and ninth centuries, so that while more than 50,000 Tang poems survive (more than any earlier period in Chinese history), this still likely represents only a small portion of the poetry that was actually produced during the period. Many seventh-century poets are reported by the 721 imperial library catalog as having left behind massive volumes of poetry, of which only a tiny portion survives, and there are notable gaps in the poetic œuvres of even Li Bo and Du Fu, the two most celebrated Tang poets.
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. Such works as the Chu Ci and Shijing were major influences on Tang poetry, as were the developments of Han poetry and Jian'an poetry. All of these influenced the Six Dynasties poetry, which in turn helped to inspire the Tang poets. In terms of influences upon the poetry of the early Tang, Burton Watson characterizes the poetry of the Sui and early Tang as "a mere continuation of Six Dynasties genres and styles."Watson, 109
History
The Tang dynasty was a time of 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: Early Tang, High Tang, Middle Tang, and Late Tang.
Early Tang In Early Tang (初唐), poets began 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. Early Tang poetry is subdivided into early, middle and late phases. Some of the initial poets who began to develop what is considered to be the Tang dynasty style of poetry were heavily influenced by the Court Style of the Southern Dynasties (南朝宫), referring to the Southern Dynasties of the Southern and Northern Dynasties time period (420–589 CE) that preceded the short-lived Sui dynasty (581–618 CE). The Southern Dynasty Court (or Palace) poems tended towards an ornate and flowery style and particular vocabulary, partly passed on through continuity of certain governmental individuals who were also poets, during the transition from Sui to Tang. This group includes the emperor Li Shimin, the calligrapher Yu Shinan, Chu Liang (禇亮), Li Baiyao, the governmental official Shangguan Yi, and his granddaughter, the governmental official and later imperial consort Shangguan Wan'er. Indeed, there were many others, as this was a culture that placed a great emphasis on literature and poetry, at least for persons in official capacity and their social intimates. Representative of the middle phase of early Tang were the so-called "Four Literary Friends:" poets Li Jiao, Su Weidao, Cui Rong, and Du Shenyan. This represents a transitional phase. In the late phase the poetic style becomes more typical of what is considered as Tang poetry. A major influence was Wang Ji (585–644) upon the Four Paragons of the Early Tang: Wang Bo, Yang Jiong, Lu Zhaolin, and Luo Binwang. They each preferred to dispense with literary pretensions in favor of authenticity. Chen Zi'ang (661–702) is credited with being the great poet who finally brought an end to the Beginning Tang period, casting away the ornate Court style in favor of a hard-hitting, authentic poetry which included political and social commentary (at great risk to himself), and thus leading the way to the greatness that was to come.
High Tang In High Tang (盛唐), sometimes known as Flourishing Tang or Golden Tang, first appear the poets which would come to mind as Tang poets, at least in the United States and Europe. High Tang poetry had numerous schools of thought: The beginning part of this era, or style-period, include Zhang Jiuling (678–740), Wang Han, and Wang Wan. There were also the so-called Four Gentlemen of Wuzhong (吳中四士): He Zhizhang (659–744), Bao Rong, Zhang Xu (658–747, also famous as a calligrapher), and Zhang Ruoxu. The "Fields and Gardens Poets Group" (田园诗派) include Meng Haoran (689 or 691–740), the famous poet and painter Wang Wei (701–761), Chu Guangxi (707–760), Chang Jian, Zu Yong (祖咏), Pei Di, Qiwu Qian (綦毋潜), Qiu Wei (丘为), and others. The "Borders and Frontier Fortress Poets Group" () includes Gao Shi (706–765), Cen Shen (715–770), Wang Changling (698–756), Wang Zhihuan (688–742), Cui Hao (about 704–754) and Li Qi (690–751). Li Bai (701–762) and Du Fu (712–770) were the two best-known Tang poets. Li Bai and Du Fu both lived to see the Tang Empire shaken by the catastrophic events of the An Lushan Rebellion (755–763). This had a tremendous impact on their work, though it did not mark the end of Tang Dynasty poetry, which ended with Li Yu in 978.
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. In the early phase of the Middle Tang period Du Fu's yuefu poetry was extended by poets such as Dai Shulun (戴叔伦, 732–789) who used the opportunity to admonish governmental officials as to their duties toward the suffering common folk. Others concentrated on developing the Landscape Style Poem (山水诗), such as Liu Zhangqing (刘长卿, 709–780) and Wei Yingwu (韦应物, 737–792). The Frontier Fortress Style had its continued advocates, representative of whom are Li Yi (李益) and Lu Lun (卢纶, 739–799). The traditional association between poetry and scholarship was shown by the existence of a group of ten poets (大历十才子), who tended to ignore the woes of the people, preferring to sing and chant their poems in praise of peace, beautiful landscapes and the commendability of seclusion. They are: Qian Qi (錢起, 710–782), Lu Lun is also a part of this group, Ji Zhongfu (吉中孚), Han Yi (韩翊), Sikong Shu (司空曙, 720–790), Miao Fa—or Miao Bo – (苗發/苗发), Cui Tong (崔峒), Geng Hui (耿諱/耿讳), Xia Hou Shen (夏侯审), and the poet (李端, 743–782). One of the greatest Tang poets was Bai Juyi (白居易, 772–846), considered the leader of the somewhat angry, bitter, speaking-truth-to-power New Yuefu Movement (新樂府運動). Among the other poets considered to be part of this movement are Yuan Zhen (元稹, 779–831), Zhang Ji (张籍, 767–830), and Wang Jian (王建). Several Tang poets stand out as being too individualistic to really be considered a group, yet sharing a common interest in experimental exploration of the relationship of poetry to words, and pushing the limits thereof; including: Han Yu (韩愈, 768–824), Meng Jiao (孟郊, 751–814), Jia Dao (賈島/贾岛, 779–843), and Lu Tong (盧仝/卢仝, 795–835). Two notable poets were Liu Yuxi (刘禹锡, 772–842) and Liu Zongyuan (柳宗元, 773–819).