Li Po, also known as Li Bai, was a Chinese poet who lived during the Tang Dynasty (618-907). He is considered one of the greatest poets in Chinese literature and is often referred to as the "Immortal Poet."
Li Po was born in Central China and grew up in a time of great cultural and artistic flourishing. He was highly educated and well-versed in classical literature, and his poetry reflects this knowledge and appreciation for tradition. However, he also had a strong individualistic streak and was known for his unconventional lifestyle and rebellious spirit.
One of the defining features of Li Po's poetry is its musicality and beauty. He was a master of rhyme and meter, and his poems are often infused with vivid imagery and sensory detail. Many of his poems have become famous for their evocative descriptions of nature and the emotions they evoke.
Despite his fame and talent, Li Po had a tumultuous life and was often at odds with the authorities of the time. He was known for his love of wine and was prone to bouts of drunkenness, which sometimes led to trouble. He also had a wandering spirit and spent much of his life traveling, which often put him at odds with the authorities.
Despite these challenges, Li Po remained a beloved and influential figure in Chinese literature and culture. His poetry continues to be widely read and admired to this day, and he remains an important figure in the history of Chinese literature.
Li Po
Why should I climb the look out? She evidently left him and took the children because he had not secured a government position as she hoped and instead had dedicated himself to wine and song. Reprinted: New York: Paragon, 1965. Ah, how shall you know the dreary sorrow at the North Gate, With Li Po's name forgotten, And we guardsmen fed to the tigers. Perhaps he considered taking the examination below his dignity. The main reason for this is that Li Po was not an innovator; he took the classic form, the form that was familiar, and raised it another level with an unparalleled grace and eloquence.
“The Works of Li Po The Chinese Poet: Done Into English Verse”
Inexhaustible, this Mountain and I gaze at each other, it alone remaining. Another story goes that the emperor was persuaded by his royal consort, Yang Guifei, to expel Li Bai, as he had offended an influential royal eunuch Gao Lishi. Other themes in Li's poetry, noted especially in the 20th century, are sympathy for the common folk and antipathy towards needless wars even when conducted by the emperor himself. He met Du Fu in the autumn of 744, and again the following year. He is said, famously but untruly, to have drowned in the Yangtze River, having fallen from his boat while drunkenly trying to embrace the reflection of the moon. They coax and pull their young ones down from the branches to drink and frolic with the water-borne moon.
According to legend, he was drowned attempting to embrace the moon's reflection in a river. I hang my cap on a crag, And bare my head to the wind that comes Blowing through the pine trees. Tradition says that it was edited into its present form by the Sage of Sages, Confucius himself. A NIGHT WITH A FRIEND Dousing clean a thousand old cares, sticking it out through a hundred pots of wine, a good night needing the best conversation, a brilliant moon that will not let us sleep drunk we lie down in empty hills, heaven and earth our quilt and pillow. Their spontaneous movement enacts this identification, this belonging to earth in the fundamental sense of belonging to its processes. Another characteristic of his poetry is the air of playfulness, hyperbole and outright fantasy that infuses much of it. Oxford Book of Verse in English Translation, The.
The first translations in a Western language were published in 1862 by Marquis d'Hervey de Saint-Denys in his Poésies de l'Époque des Thang. New Haven, London: Yale University Press, 367—403. Poet He Zhizhang called Li Bai "the god dismissed from the Heaven" after their initial meeting, and thus the epithet of "the Poem-God". In 725, when he was twenty-five years old, Li Bai sailed down the Yangtze River all the way to Weiyang Yangzhou and Jinling Nanjing. The capital city is hlled with officials- why should this man be made so wretched? Downstream to Yang-chou, late spring a haze of blossoms, distant glints of lone sail vanish into emerald-green air: nothing left but a river flowing on the borders of heaven. In pre-modern times, he raised poetry to levels of expressiveness and impact never before reached. Soon the path ends.
Li Po is a famous Chinese poet, who had written numerous romantic and emotional poems…
The scribes who created the Shih Ching were poets, not tape recorders. See Minford, John and Lau, Joseph S. Among the top poets in Chinese history resides Li Po. He was to become its poet laureate, a laureate who drank, rode to the hunt with princes and ministers, and appeared at court, at the imperial command, to dash off masterpieces-or did not appear, instead informing the Brilliant Emperor that he, the God of Wine, could not be bothered to leave his tavern. Norton Anthology of Poetry, The. During the first year of his trip, he met celebrities and gave away much of his wealth to needy friends. In its present form, the Shih Ching consists of three major sections, the Kuo Feng, or Odes of the States, comprising 160 of the 300 are generally but not always folk songs.
I desired my dust to be mingled with yours Forever and forever and forever. Snatch the joys of life as they come and use them to the full; Do not leave the silver cup idly glinting at the moon. . Instead, beginning at age twenty-five, he travelled around China, enjoying liquor and leading a carefree life: very much contrary to the prevailing ideas of a proper Confucian gentleman. We are lodged in this world as in a great dream; Then why cause our lives so much stress? Chiang Chin Chiu See the waters of the Yellow River leap down from Heaven, Roll away to the deep sea and never turn again! At the age of ten, his formal education started.
According to one version, he got tired of the luxuries of the city and court. He began his wanderings in his mid-20s when he sailed down the Yangtze River to Nanjing, studied with a Taoist master, and entered into a brief marriage with the daughter of a local official in Yunmeng. In 756, Li Po was mixed up in the political upheaval of the An Lushan Rebellion and was captured and sentenced to death for his involvement. He was part of the group of Chinese scholars called the "Eight Immortals of the Wine Cup" in a poem by fellow poet Du Fu. Scholars commonly acknowledge it as authentic and the only known surviving piece of calligraphy by Li Bai. New York: Columbia University Press, 2001. The River Merchant's Wife; a Letter l.
The works of Li Po, the Chinese poet (1923 edition)
Born in Szechwan, Li Po spent his life constantly on the move. Li Po 701 -762. They are as important in Chinese literary history as Shakespeare is to people in Britain, Drunkenness didn't have negative connotations for an 8th Century poet - it was the route to divine inspiration. He participated in the court revels, wrote a number of poems about events in court, and was renowned for his literary performances. However, after class analysis about the poem, I found out version 1 is more in detail and closer to the Chinese version. Children grow up learning his poems even today.
